[Warning: Potentially Triggering Content]
An 11-year-old boy in a small town in England was shot in the head, apparently after he tried to climb over a fence to retrieve his soccer ball from a neighbor’s yard.
The incident occurred on Monday evening in the city of Leyland, a mid-sized town in the northwestern English region of Lancashire. The unnamed boy and his friends had been kicking around a soccer ball in a backyard there when one of them accidentally kicked it over the fence. As boys do, the pre-teen hopped the fence to retrieve the ball — and he was shot!!
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Per a press release sent out by the Lancashire Police, as the boy climbed over the fence, he “was hit in the head by a metal pellet fired from what is thought to be an air weapon.”
OMG!!
According to the Telegraph, a neighbor heard a “commotion in the road” at the time of the shooting. That witness recounted:
“I heard that the boy’s mother had gone to a friend’s house to get help and it was her who dialed 999 [the United Kingdom’s equivalent of 911 in America]. The friend told me the boy had been shot in the head with a BB gun. I can’t understand why it happened. And it makes you think if it’s safe for kids to be playing out.”
Lancashire cops noted that they immediately carried out “a number of inquiries to try and identify the person or persons responsible.” Quickly, the investigation led them to ANOTHER MINOR!! The department revealed:
“Following a number of inquiries, we have now identified someone of interest to our investigation and we will be speaking to them in due course. That person is another juvenile.”
Wow…
As for the 11-year-old victim, he is thankfully alive, but his injuries are severe. Per People, he was rushed to Alder Hey Children’s Hospital in nearby Liverpool and taken into surgery to treat a fractured skull. Detective Constable Paul Brown stated:
“This incident has left a young boy with some really significant injuries, and it is fortunate he was not more seriously hurt or even killed.”
Another local detective, Inspector Paul Mulrooney, added:
“We are grateful to those who have come forward with information so far. We are confident there is no wider risk to anyone in the community. Thankfully the victim’s injuries are not serious, and he is making a good recovery.”
Well, that’s good to hear at least. How unnecessarily close to tragedy! We send all of our well wishes to the boy as he recovers.
To learn more about the impact of gun violence, visit https://www.apha.org/topics-and-issues/gun-violence.
[Image via 20th Century Fox/YouTube.]
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