2 year old Pennsylvania boy accidentally shoots 4 year old sister dead at Chester gas station after toddler came across loaded gun and pointed it at sibling.
Not again … A 2-year-old Pennsylvania boy accidentally shot and killed his 4-year-old sister at a Delaware County gas station Tuesday morning, police said.
The siblings were inside a vehicle parked at a gas pump at the Eagle Save Mart on the 900 block of Kerlin Street in Chester around 10:45 a.m when the tragedy occurred, police said.
At the time, the boy was handling a gun which went off, fatally striking the 4-year-old toddler girl.
The children’s father was outside of the car when the gun went off witnesses said.
Witnesses told of hearing a single gunshot from inside the vehicle, which was parked at a gas pump. The 4-year-old girl was rushed to Crozer-Chester Medical Center, where she was later pronounced dead CBS News reported.
‘It was a morning ritual, I’d see them every morning,’
Theodore Crumpler, a Chester resident, and friend of the girl’s father said he normally watched over the siblings, except this one time.
‘He went in the store. Usually he has someone pumping gas, which would be me or somebody else and I would watch the kids,’ Crumpler told NBC10. ‘But I wasn’t here today. I’m so hurt that I wasn’t here.’
‘It was a morning ritual, I’d see them every morning,’ Crump said. ‘He was a good dude. He went to work every day. He kept his kids right there beside him. It’s the number one thing that he did, OK. Their dad was a very beautiful man.’
District Attorney Jack Stollsteimer called the incident a tragic day for Delaware County.
Not immediately clear is how the young boy was able to come across the loaded weapon and whether there would be any charges in the case.
Chester police continue to investigate.
According to data analyzed by advocacy group Everytown for Gun Safety, so far this year there have been at least 51 unintentional shootings by children in the U.S., resulting in 17 deaths and 38 injuries.
Last year, there were at least 379 unintentional shootings by children nationwide, resulting in 154 deaths and 244 injuries, the group said.
