US boy, 11, kills girl, eight, over puppy
Maykayla Dyer, 8, was shot and killed by her next-door neighbor.<br />photo: nydailynews
A simple childish fight over a puppy led an 11-year-old boy to shoot and kill his eight-year-old neighbor in the US state of Tennessee, the girl’s grieving mother said.
Latasha Dyer said her daughter was playing outside when the boy asked to see her puppy. Little McKayla said “no” and shortly after was shot in the chest.
“When we first moved to White Pine, the little boy was bullying McKayla,” Latasha Dyer told WATE 6 news in a video posted on the station’s website Sunday.
“He was making fun of her, calling her names, just being mean to her. I had to go the principal about him and he quit for a while and then all of a sudden yesterday he shot her.”
Dyer was overcome with emotion as she spoke to the local television station from the front steps of her mobile home in White Pine, Tennessee.
“I want her back in my arms, this is not fair, hold and kiss you’re babies every night because you’re never promised the next day with them,” she said. “I hope the little boy learned his lesson because he took my baby’s life — and I can’t get her back.”
She described her daughter as “a precious little girl, she was a mommy’s girl, no matter how bad of a mood you were in she could always make you smile.”
Jefferson County Sheriff G.W. “Bud” McCoig said the boy has been charged with first degree murder and was being held in a juvenile detention center.
“Our prayers are with the families that are involved in the tragic incident,” he said at a press conference.
The boy was inside his home when he shot the girl with his father’s single-shot 12 gauge shotgun at about 7:30 pm Saturday, McCoig said.
“The two were neighbors and in this neighborhood all the children would play together and knew each other and all attended school together,” he said.
McCoig declined to release any further details, explaining that five other children live in the boy’s home and two other children live in the girl’s home and “we’re trying to protect them, as much as they’ve been hurt by this tragedy.”
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3 Comments
I am sad to read this story.It seems as if the first time I would read such a story.My heart goes out to the bereaved mother.I am of the mind that parents should keep the firearms away from teens.In view of this, the father should be charged for negligence.
Since America armed her society against the native Indians, she has not known peace!
Deep condolences & prayers go to the families involved, and to the emergency services – police, medics, counselling – who have to pick up the pieces of suburban America’s near-sexual fetishing of fire arms.
Meanwhile, the world can look forward to a statement from Wayne LaPierre at the US National Rifle Association to the effect that * more guns * , not fewer, would have prevented this gun-based slaughter among children, a self-willed slaughter which carries off in the region of 30,000 Americans each year to early, perforated death. More guns in the home, more guns in schools & kindergartens, more guns in hospitals, in workplaces & public parks, more guns in places of leisure, in retirement homes, in furtherance of a supposedly constitutional right, willfully misinterpreted by purchased, corrupt, unbalanced spokespeople, suffering borderline psychoses of various typologies. More guns, please, America. As the rest of the world looks on, howling its head off at Americans in laughter, in a horrified ecstasy of incredulity at your willed stupidity.
I believe it would profoundly beneficial for America’s faith in firearms if the current Republican candidates for the presidency dropped their present format of debate, – much too intellectual, way too elitist ! – and opted instead for a managed shoot-out, – terminally and fatally decisive – in front of TV cameras, for the entertainment & elevation of Joe and Joanna Sixpack at home on their sofa. All supporters of America’s imagined right to bear arms outside ‘an organised militia’, these red-blooded scions of the red GOP would surely jump at the chance to demonstrate the depth of their political beliefs. Imagine Jeb Bush cowering behind a podium, looking for a clear shot as Rand Paul sprays death from his Glock at his co-candidates. Envisage Donald Trump hiding behind the inert corpse of the governor of New Jersey, struggling to reload and release hot lead towards a distracted Carly Fiorina. Politics, violence & death – only in America. Does anyone imagine that Fox TV, the National Rifle Association and the leadership of the Republican Party are NOT working on this format, an apt tribute to 30,000 Americans needlessly slaughtered each year with guns?
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