(HorizonPost.com) – An 11-year-old Florida boy was arrested and charged with attempted murder after allegedly firing a gun and hitting two 13-year-old boys in a parking lot after football practice Monday night, CBS News reported.
In a press conference on Tuesday, Apopka Police Chief Mike McKinley said the shooting occurred around 8:30 p.m. in the parking lot of the recreation center where the Pop Warner football practice was held. When responding officers arrived at the scene, they found two boys suffering from gunshot sounds. One boy was hit in the arm while the other was struck in the torso.
The boy who was shot in the arm was treated at a nearby hospital and released. The second boy required surgery and remained in the hospital in stable condition, McKinley said.
The suspect was booked on one count of second-degree attempted murder.
According to Chief McKinley, the shooting was an escalation of an argument that began during practice and continued into the parking lot where the 11-year-old suspect retrieved a firearm kept in his mother’s car and fired a single shot that struck both victims, McKinley said.
On Wednesday, the New York Post published surveillance footage showing one of the two victims chasing the suspect to the car. The suspect is seen reaching into the vehicle to retrieve the gun. He then fires a shot at the boy who chased him.
According to police, after firing the weapon, the boy placed the gun back into his mother’s vehicle where it was later found by investigators.
The mother told detectives that she knew her son was aware that she kept a loaded gun under the front passenger seat in a gun box but said she had previously told him that he was not to handle the weapon.
McKinley told reporters that since the gun was kept in an unlocked box, police would pursue charges against the boy’s parents.
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