A six-year-old boy was left fighting for his life in a Kansas City hospital after being hit by a bullet while playing outside on a sunny afternoon.
Home surveillance video obtained by FOX4 shows children throwing a basketball and shouting happily on a block near Central High School around 7 p.m. on Wednesday.
But their screams turned into screams of terror when a burst of gunshots was heard. Parents were seen reaching for their children as they dispersed, and a girl was seen carrying a small child in her arms before running into her home.
The boy, 6, was knocked off his bike by a stray bullet and 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 boy is loaded into the back of an ambulance.
A six-year-old boy was left in critical condition at a Kansas City hospital after he was struck by a bullet Wednesday night.
The video shows children playing outside when suddenly a burst of gunshots is heard, causing everyone to scatter.
Kansas City police say the boy was knocked off his bike by a bullet and was lying on the sidewalk when they arrived.
Kansas City Police Department officers were already in the area when the shots were heard. When they arrived at the scene, the six-year-old boy was lying on the sidewalk.
The little boy is the third child shot in eight days in the area. An 11-year-old boy and a five-year-old boy were killed 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 they carried her to the front yard, leaving a trail of blood, and eventually succumbed to her injuries.
Kourtney, a fifth-grade student at Ewing Marion Kauffman School, died a month before her 12th birthday.
On April 16, police were called to a home on East 51st Street around 10:30 p.m. for reports of shots fired. The call was upgraded to a shooting when officers approached.
When they arrived at the scene, they were told that a family member was taking five-year-old Mari Scott to a hospital. However, he was pronounced dead upon her arrival.
A preliminary investigation revealed that the shooting was “accidental” or “self-inflicted” after the boy put his hands on a firearm inside the home.
Video taken by a neighbor shows the little boy being loaded into the back of an ambulance
The six-year-old boy was the third child shot in just eight days. Last week, 11-year-old Kourtney Freeman was shot to death inside her home.
Kourtney (left) died a month before her 12th birthday. About a week later, on April 16, five-year-old Mari Scott fatally shot herself inside a Kansas City home.
The wave of gun violence has left locals frustrated.
‘It is awful. When I found out I was 6 years old and all those people outside left a little boy outside, that’s bad,” neighbor Roniesha Ford told FOX 4.
‘They know that their children had weapons; They know that their children carry weapons. If you know your children are here doing things to people, you need to stop them before you are the children.’
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 came on the heels of the shooting at the Kansas City Chiefs parade in February, which claimed the life of radio host Lisa López-Galván. Some 21 people were injured, 11 of them children.
After the mass shooting, Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas spoke to the media. “I mean, that’s the thing about guns,” he said bluntly.
‘We had security in numerous 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 normal people who live every day, have to decide what we want to do about it.
“Parades, rallies, schools, movies, it seems like almost nothing is safe,” he continued.
The wave of gun violence comes on the heels of the mass shooting at the Kansas City Chiefs parade in February, which killed one person and left nearly a dozen children injured.
Speaking 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 the deadliest year in Kansas City, with 182 homicides recorded
Lucas later appeared at a rally organized by the Kansas City chapter of Mothers Demand Action, where she once again condemned 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 continue living like this.
“I don’t want us in 20 years to say, ‘We don’t have parades for xoy anymore.’ I don’t want us to be looking over our shoulders.
‘We need to have a place to be, a place to go, a place to live. That’s why I think today you see so many people saying enough is enough.”
Advocacy groups are working with local leaders as they mobilize to demand stricter gun control.
On Friday, Vice Mayor Ryana Parks-Shaw hosted the second part of a public safety symposium aimed at combating gun violence. The first part was held in March.
“As we go into our work sessions this afternoon, part of what we’ll ask is, ‘How do we know we’re successful?’ What are the things that we need to make up our metric, our dashboard?” Parks-Shaw said KSHB.
The dashboard will be available online and will be a way for groups and the public to track their progress.
“I want the public to take responsibility, come together and play their part because we can all play a part in this,” Parks-Shaw said.