A 5-year-old boy was fatally shot Thursday night inside a home in suburban Calumet City, officials said.
About 9 p.m., emergency crews responded to a call of a child shot in the 200 block of Paxton Avenue, Calumet City Police Chief Kevin Kolosh said in a news conference Friday. Officers found the 5-year-old boy with a gunshot wound to the head, according to Kolosh.
The boy, identified as Kentrell Pouncey, was taken to an area hospital where he was pronounced dead.
Preliminary investigations indicate the gun was brought into the house by a family member from a different location, and Pouncey’s mother didn’t know it was there, Kolosh said.
The gun was fired once from inside the home, according to Kolosh. Police were still investigating who fired the weapon. The boy’s mother, three juvenile relatives and Pouncey were in the house, according to Kolosh.
“Regardless of the circumstances concerning this tragic death, our hearts are broken as this family must now deal with the loss of this young child,” Calumet City Mayor Thaddeus Jones said in a statement. “I would like to express my deepest condolences to the family.”
The neighborhood where the shooting occurred was quiet Friday afternoon. A gray Honda was parked in the driveway of the home, and two bicycles were seen near the home where Pouncey was shot.
One woman said she and her family just moved to the block where the shooting occurred and saw a member of Pouncey’s family playing outside a few days ago.
Another woman who has lived on the block for 10 years said she had not heard anything but saw police around the house last night.
“It’s sad, real sad,” she said.
“It happens everywhere,” said another woman who has lived on the block for 65 years. “That’s what guns do.”
