She’Marion Burse, 11 year old Florida boy accidentally shot dead by his 13 year old brother after finding correction officer mom’s handgun in master bedroom.
‘The light of our life…’ A 13 year old boy accidentally shot dead his eleven year old brother in Miami last week, after the siblings came across a gun from their correction officer mother’s bedroom.
The accidental discharge saw the victim, She’Marion Burse, fatally shot in the chest as the brothers fiddled with a handgun they found in their parents’ room, Florida police said.
The incident took place in the family’s condo in the Kendale Lakes section of the city. Police said three of the children’s other siblings, aged 9 to 15, were present when the tragedy occurred. In total, five children were alone at the apartment, with a gun in a closet in the master bedroom, WSVN reported.
No adults – including Burse’s Miami-Dade Corrections officer mother Tiffany Callaway – were home when the boy was shot.
Building residents described seeing the child die in a neighbor’s arms as his brothers looked on.
Neighbor attempted to perform CPR on victim
Police are investigating the death – but have said they do not expect to file any charges.
‘Blood on the wall, him just laying there, taking his last breath, and it was just traumatic,’ one neighbor recalled after witnessing the immediate aftermath of the accidental shooting, which happened around 5pm Thursday.
The resident, who asked not to be identified, told local outlet 7News that she was the one to call 911, after the single shot reverberated through the apartment complex. At that point, she said she heard the boys’ desperate cries for help.
When the Good Samaritan rushed into the residence to investigate, she saw the 11 year on the floor covered in blood.
‘I called 911. I went inside the house,’ the Horizons West complex resident told the paper. ‘The baby was there, blood everywhere.’
She said at that point She’Marion’s brother asked her to perform CPR on his sibling, who by that point had stopped breathing. The neighbor obliged, but was unable to help the youth, who died in her arms.
‘I proceeded to do CPR, mouth-to-mouth until he stopped breathing. And then I just stopped,’ the neighbor said, adding that she felt Shemarion had died.
Gun was in a firearm case
‘I just apologized to the person that was over him. I knew he was a sibling also. I just walked out of the house and started to break down myself.’
Emergency crews arrived just after 5 pm, where they found the victim.
The boy was quickly airlifted to Jackson Memorial Hospital’s Ryder Trauma Center, where he was pronounced dead.
Investigators have since confirmed that the victim’s 13-year-old brother, who was not named, had removed a gun from a firearm case in the master bedroom closet, and the gun went off as he was handling it.
She’Marion was subsequently struck in the chest by the single shot.
Police are currently probing the incident, but have said they do not expect to file any charges.
‘the light of our life’
The boy’s mother, Tiffany Callaway, described Burse as ‘the light of our life’ on the family’s GoFundMe page.
Callaway, who has yet to publicly comment on her son’s death, started a GoFundMe page for funeral expenses, where she remembered her 10 year old son (despite police reporting the victim’s age as eleven) as as a ‘loving, playful and always there to put a smile on your face when you needed.’
‘[Imagining] life without him is something we never thought we’d have to do as a family, and even worse, we have to lay him to rest,’ Callaway wrote.
‘We weren’t prepared for this tragedy and are simply asking for a kind hand. Any donation small or big will allow us to give him the proper burial.’
Miami-Dade police have since asked citizens to respect the privacy of the family ‘in an effort to show respect for the family’s needs and allow them to mourn in private.’
Police have not indicated whether Callaway was the owner of the gun that would kill her son. Their investigation is still ongoing.
The American Public Health Association says gun violence in the US is a public health crisis. It is a leading cause of premature death in the country, responsible for more than 38,000 deaths annually. As of Nov. 11, at least 17,512 people have died from gun violence this year, and another 20,790 have died by suicide, according to data from the Gun Violence Archive.
