Two teenagers are now charged in the shooting death of a 13-year-old boy. Police say the teens found a gun in a box, loaded it, and started playing with it, leading to the deadly accidental shooting.
Two teenagers are now charged in the shooting death of a 13-year-old boy.
A 15-year-old boy is charged with involuntary manslaughter while a 17-year-old is charged with recklessly endangering another person.
Police say both suspects, who have not been identified, were among a group of teens who found a box with a gun and bullets inside in an abandoned house Wednesday afternoon. The group assembled the gun, loaded it and began to play with it in the backyard of a home on East Walnut Lane near Germantown Avenue, police said.
As they were playing, one of the teens accidentally fired the gun, shooting a 13-year-old boy in the face, according to investigators.
Neighbors who heard the gunshot, along with the 13-year-old boy's father, rushed to see what happened.
"I ran back there and saw him back there," said Slyde Huntley, a friend of the boy's father. "I went to look at his dad. His dad tried to pick him up. It was gory."
The boy died a short time later at Albert Einstein Medical Center. He is the second child in a week in Philadelphia to die of an accidental shooting, after a 4-year-old girl died last Thursday of an accidental gunshot wound at her home in North Philadelphia.
Police later recovered the weapon near the scene and continue to investigate.
