A Florida community is outraged, and a family left grieving, after a Dania Beach, Fla., 8-year-old boy was shot and killed while walking home from a birthday party, CBS Miami reports.
Broward County, Fla.'s sheriff's spokesperson Veda Coleman-Wright said that the shooting happened late Wednesday evening. Two of the boy's adult cousins were injured in the shooting and taken to the hospital. Their conditions are not currently known.
According to the report, the third-grader lived with his grandmother, who reportedly collapsed behind crime-scene tape shortly after arriving on the scene after the shooting.
Coleman-Wright said that the shooting is the fourth that has occurred in the neighborhood since Christmas. She said that deputies believe that two of the previous incidents may be related to this one.
The Rev. J.C. Howard, with the St. Ruth Baptist Church, expressed outrage on behalf of the family and the community over the spree of shootings.
“[To] have to deal with a child, an 8-year-old child who was a scholar-athlete, being shot at the hands of treacherous murderers is uncalled for, is reprehensible, and the community is angry, but they are scared, so we really need some serious attention in Dania Beach right now," Howard said.
No arrests have been made in the shootings, and investigators are asking anyone with information to come forward.
“The shooting needs to stop. A child is dead and our detectives have been working around the clock trying to put this together, trying to get information, evidence, sworn statements, what they need to make an arrest in these cases. So what we need from the community is not to be in fear but to come forward with information,” Coleman-Wright said.
Read more at CBS Miami.