A 15-year-old Baltimore girl was shot in the head and killed Saturday night by a nine-year-old boy playing with a loaded handgun registered to a female relative of the boy who is employed as an armed security guard, according to WBAL NBC-11 in Baltimore.
The victim, identified as Nykayia Strawder, lived in the boy’s neighborhood and was walking along the street when she was shot. The boy dropped the gun and ran home, where he was found later by police. State law prevents a child under 10 from being charged with a crime.
Since the beginning of 2022, around 1,027 children under the age of 18 have been killed by guns, according to the Gun Violence Archive, with nearly 2,700 injured.