Maliyah Palmer a six year old Florissant, St Louis Missouri girl ‘accidentally’ shot dead by her 12 year old brother while parents attend Christmas party.
A 6-year-old girl in Missouri died last week after she was accidentally shot in the head by her 12-year-old brother while their parents were at a Christmas party.
Fox 2 Now reported Maliyah Palmer being shot in the head on Friday and dying at a nearby hospital. The two were reportedly being watched by a 16-year-old brother. Florissant police responded to the shooting at 11 p.m.
The 12-year-old reportedly found the 9mm pistol inside a dresser in his parent’s bedroom and fired the gun. His sister was near him.
‘All of the officers who responded to the scene are mothers and fathers, so you can only imagine how personal it is to see a child shot in the back of the head. We will have counselors here for a debriefing hopefully this week to make sure the mental state of our officers is OK,’ Timothy Lowery, the police chief said, according to the paper.
Authorities called the shooting a tragic accident with The Post-Dispatch reporting investigators will seek to turn evidence to prosecutors. Authorities said earlier that no charges would be filed. Of note- the Post reported the siblings parents having been charged in similar cases in the past.
‘You couldn’t have written a more tragic script, the whole thing is just so tragic and terrible, but we have to put our personal feelings aside and do the law enforcement side of this,’ Lowery said, according to the paper.
The parents’ names were not disclosed by police. Nor was the name of the 12-year-old boy. The girl was a student at Green Trails Elementary School in Chesterfield.
Florissant, which has a population of about 50,000, is a suburb of St. Louis in Missouri.
