11-year-old boy fatally shot his mother’s boyfriend in Southwest Philadelphia, police say
The child shot his mother's boyfriend as he was assaulting her, police said.
An 11-year-old boy shot and killed his mother’s boyfriend during a fight in her Southwest Philadelphia home Thursday evening, police said.
They did not identify the child because of his age.
Officers were called to the scene at a rowhouse on the 1100 block of South Peach Street around 11:30 p.m., police said. There they found a 30-year-old man suffering from a gunshot wound to the face in a back bedroom on the second floor.
Police later identified the man as Jaimeer Jones-Walker of Lansdowne.
Chief Inspector Scott Small said that based on preliminary evidence, police believe Jones-Walker showed up at the home, where the woman lives with family, and began to argue and physically assault her.
In response, he said, the child pulled a semiautomatic handgun and fired one shot, striking Jones-Walker.
Jones-Walker is not the boy’s father, Small said.
The gun was registered to the child’s mother, according to police, who are continuing to investigate the shooting.
The boy and his mother are cooperating with authorities, Small said.
The stretch of South Peach Street was quiet Friday morning, and neighbors walking along the block or sitting outside said they did not recall hearing gunshots Thursday night.
Neighbors said they often saw the woman with her daughter and son outside the home, and occasionally saw Jones-Walker, too.
Incidents in which a child fatally shoots an adult are rare, Small said.
“It’s unusual,” he said.
However, pediatricians have warned that children are increasingly gaining access to firearms at home, often with deadly consequences.
Suicide rates among young people have surged in recent years, in part due to unsecured firearms, experts with the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia said in a 2024 report.
In Philadelphia, the number of people 18 and younger who have shot themselves soared from 2 in 2019 to 20 in 2021, and the number has remained elevated.
Children as young as 2 are strong enough to pull the trigger of a gun, pediatricians said, underscoring the need for parents of young children to secure their firearms using gun locks and storage safes.