US: 5-year-old killed, one injured in shooting incident in Houston
Jul 03, 2022
Houston [US], July 3 : A minor kid was killed and another was injured in a shooting in Houston when two suspects opened fire at a moving vehicle for unknown reasons, officials said.
According to CNN, Houston Police Assistant Chief, Chandra Hatcher said that the 5-year-old was pronounced dead, and the 8-year-old is expected to make a full recovery.
She said that witnesses of the incident informed the police that a car was driving westbound on Rushcreek Drive and another vehicle was travelling north on Northborough Drive.
The vehicle travelling westbound on Rushcreek might have had two suspects in it who "started discharging a firearm ... or potentially multiple firearms," Hatcher said.
The other car travelling northbound on Northborough had a woman and two children in it, Hatcher said. As soon as the woman realized the children were shot, she immediately took them to a hospital, she added.
Hatcher said that the police received a call about a shooting in the 13300 block of Northborough Drive on Sunday at around 1 am (local time), CNN reported.
The officers did not see anything when they arrived at the incident spot. Later, police received reports of injured children who arrived at a hospital about 15 minutes later they realized a crime occurred, Hatcher said.
As the reason for the shooting remains unclear, Houston police are asking for the public's help in finding whoever opened fire on a car overnight.
"We are looking for surveillance footage," Hatcher said and encouraged anyone who knows more about the incident to come forward.
"Please continue to pray for the family of the deceased child and the injured 8-year-old," she added.
As of late Saturday, there had been 302 mass shootings across the US this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive.
With increasing incidents of gun violence in the United States, President Joe Biden had said that the US needs to ban assault weapons for the sake of protecting children and families or raise the age to purchase them from 18 to 21.
On June 22, a group of US lawmakers reached a much-awaited deal on a bipartisan gun safety bill after recent mass shooting incidents in Uvalde, Buffalo and Texas, that struck a nerve in the country.
The new bill aims to take firearms away from dangerous people and provide billions of dollars in new mental health funding.
The bill does not ban assault-style rifles or significantly expand background-check requirements for gun purchases, but it gives states more resources to take guns away from dangerous individuals.
In the recent incidents, two people were killed and four others including three officers were injured in a shooting in Haltom City of Texas on Saturday. Police said that one woman was found dead inside the home and a man was found fatally shot in the home's driveway. An elderly woman who called 911 was shot but expected to survive.
On May 24, a mass shooting incident took place at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas in which several people including 19 children were killed. This was the deadliest attack since the 2018 Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, Florida, where 17 people were killed, according to CNN.
On June 20, a teenager was shot dead and three others including a police officer were injured in a shooting in the area of 14th and U Street Northwest in Washington, DC.
On June 1, at least four people were killed in a shooting incident at a hospital campus in Oklahoma's Tulsa city, CNN reported citing police. The shootout incidents in the US have been increasing.