A Sacramento County family had to start the New Year grieving the death of a 10-year-old boy who was fatally shot. What makes this story even more tragic is that the shooter was the same age as the victim.
Keith “KJ” Frierson asked his mother if he could go outside to play with the new bike he received for Christmas on New Years Eve, his family said in the GoFundMe set up for funeral donations. Upon going outside, he was approached by another 10-year-old boy, per the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office. The boy went into his father’s vehicle to get him a pack of cigarettes but also retrieved his firearm. The boy then bragged about his father having a gun and fatally shot KJ. The boy then fled into a nearby apartment.
When the police arrived, they found KJ unresponsive and bleeding from the head and neck. After performing life-saving measures, KJ was transferred to the hospital where he died.
This is the chilling reality of gun violence in America. Last year, we kicked off the month of January learning of a 6-year-old boy who brought his mother’s gun to school and shot and injured his first-grade teacher in Richneck, Va. Over the summer, an 11-year-old boy shot an 8-year-old girl after retrieving a firearm from inside the house.
Now, a young boy couldn’t make it past Christmas before being gun down.
Read what happened next from NBC News:
Investigators believe the suspected shooter’s father, identified as Arkete Davis, 53, tried to get rid of the gun by placing it in a trash can, the sheriff’s office said. Authorities allege the firearm was stolen.
The name of the suspected shooter was withheld because he is a juvenile. He was booked on suspicion of murder, the sheriff’s office said.
His father was arrested and booked on suspicion of possession of a firearm by a felon, criminal storage of a firearm, carrying a stolen loaded firearm in a vehicle, child endangerment and acting as an accessory to a crime after the fact, according to inmate records.
KJ’s family believes in addition to stashing the gun, the boy’s family changed his clothes to further cover up the shooting, his family said.
“Any parent in their right mind should know how to keep an armed weapon secure. My nephew’s blood is on y’all hands. Y’all allowed y’all son to do this to my 10-year-old nephew,” Erika, KJ’s aunt, told KCRA. “Y’all parents need to know how to put y’all weapons away. Teach y’all kids right. Because this wasn’t right.”
KJ’s GoFundMe has already reached nearly $9,000 of the $20,000 goal in just 48 hours.