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8 months ago
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A six-year-old boy was left fighting for his life in a Kansas City hospital after he was struck by a bullet while playing outside on a sunny evening.
Home surveillance video obtained by FOX4 shows children tossing a basketball and shouting gleefully on a block near Central High School around 7 p.m. Wednesday.
But their shouts turned into screams of terror as a barrage of gunfire rang out. Parents were seen reaching for their children as they scattered, and a little girl was seen hoisting a toddler in her arms before running inside her house.
The boy, 6, was knocked off his bike by a stray bullet and was taken to a nearby hospital in critical condition. Police say he is now clinging to life.
Video taken from a different angle shows the aftermath of the shooting, with neighbors gathering as the little boy is loaded into the back of an ambulance.
A six-year-old boy has been left in critical condition at a Kansas City hospital after he was struck by a bullet Wednesday evening
Video shows children playing outside when a blast of gunfire suddenly rings out, prompting everyone to scatter
Kansas City police say the little boy was knocked off his bike by a bullet and was lying on the sidewalk when they arrived
Officers from the Kansas City Police Department were already in the area when gunshots sounded. When they arrived on the scene, the six-year-old was lying on the sidewalk.
The little boy is the third child shot in eight days in the area. An 11-year-old and five-year-old both died in separate shootings earlier this month.
Kourtney Freeman was sitting inside her home near East 33rd Street and Flora Avenue when bullets flew on April 10.
She was unconscious when she was carried to the front lawn, trailing blood, and ultimately succumbed to her injuries.
Kourtney, a fifth-year student at the Ewing Marion Kauffman School, died one month shy of her 12th birthday.
On April 16, police were called to a home on East 51st Street around 10:30 p.m. for reports of gunshots. The call was upgraded to a shooting as officers headed over.
When they reached the scene, they were told that five-year-old Mari Scott was being taken to a hospital by a relative. However, he was pronounced dead on arrival.
A preliminary investigation revealed the shooting to be 'accidental' or 'self-inflicted' after the boy got his hands on a firearm inside the house.
Video taken by a neighbor shows the little boy being loaded into the back of an ambulance
The six-year-old was the third child shot in just eight days. Last week, 11-year-old Kourtney Freeman was shot dead inside her home
Kourtney (left) died one month shy of her 12th birthday. Around a week later, on April 16, five-year-old Mari Scott fatally shot himself inside a Kansas City home
The spate of gun violence has left locals frustrated.
'It’s horrible. When I just found out he was 6 years old and all those people that was outside – left a little kid outside, that’s bad,' neighbor Roniesha Ford told FOX 4.
'They know they kids got guns; they know they kids is carrying guns. If you know your kids is out here doing stuff to people, y’all need to stop y’all kids before it be y’all kids.'
Kansas City recorded 182 homicides by the end of 2023, making it a record year. Ten percent of the victims were between zero and 17 years old.
Wednesday's shooting comes on the heels of February's Kansas City Chiefs parade shooting, which claimed the life of radio presenter Lisa Lopez-Galvan. Around 21 people were injured, 11 of whom were children.
In the aftermath of the mass shooting, Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas spoke to members of the media. 'I mean, that’s what happens with guns,' he said bluntly.
'We had security in any number of places, eyes on top of buildings and beyond. And there is still a risk to people. And I think that’s something that all of us who are parents, who are just regular people living each day, have to decide what we wish to do about it.
'Parades, rallies, schools, movies, it seems like almost nothing is safe,' he continued.
The spate of gun violence comes on the heels of the Kansas City Chiefs parade mass shooting in February, which killed one and left nearly a dozen children injured
In remarks after the shooting, Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas said, 'That's what happens with guns'
Local advocacy groups are working with city leaders to combat gun violence. 2023 was Kansas City's deadliest year, with 182 recorded homicides
Lucas later appeared at a rally hosted by the Kansas City chapter of Mothers Demand Action, where he once again decried the violence.
'In the last year, we’ve had shootings at Oak Park Mall, Independence Center, Crown Center, outside Union Station,' he said. 'We can’t keep living like this.
'I don’t want us 20 years from now to be saying, "We don’t have parades anymore because of x or y thing." I don’t want us to be looking over our shoulders.
'We need to have somewhere to be, somewhere to go, somewhere to live. That’s why I think you see so many people saying enough is enough today.'
Advocacy groups are working with local leaders as they rally for stricter gun control.
On Friday, deputy mayor Ryana Parks-Shaw hosted the second part of a public safety symposium aimed at combatting gun violence. The first part was held in March.
'When we go into our breakout sessions this afternoon, that’s part of what we’ll be asking is "How do we know we are successful, what are the things that we need to make up our metric, our dashboard,"' Parks-Shaw told KSHB.
The dashboard will be available online and will be a way for groups and members of the public to track their progress.
'I want the public to hold themselves accountable and join in and play their part because there is a role that we all can play in this,' Parks-Shaw said.
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