Jun 8, 2009 7:40 pm US/Eastern
Police Seek Suspect In Shooting Of Little Leaguer
Devante Kelly Wounded While Posing For Team Picture, Bullet Removed; Detectives Fan Out All Over Starrett City
11-Year-Old In Stable Condition At Brookdale University Hospital
BROOKLYN (CBS) ―
-
-
This Little League field in Brooklyn was the sight where an 11-year-old boy was grazed by a stray bullet in his head, lodging beneath his skin.
CBS
It was a team photo that almost became the picture of tragedy. An 11-year-old baseball player was shot in the head by a stray bullet on a ball field and lived to tell the tale.
CBS 2 HD spoke with the boy's mother in Starrett City.
"So all the while he's in the emergency room about two or three hours, we're thinking, it's just a baseball that hit him," Andrea Walters said.
And why would Devante Kelly's mother think otherwise when he grabbed his head after feeling a pain, and was taken to Brookdale Hospital? After all, he and his team were sitting, getting a team photo taken while a game was going on. But then …
"We took a CAT scan and there was a bullet in his head," Walters said.
Once 75th Precinct detectives heard doctors removed a bullet from the boy's scalp, they fanned out Sunday in force. One detective sat approximately where the boy sat. His body language showed he was trying to fill in pieces of the puzzle. The detective with pointed up, as if to say, if it hit him in that part of his head, then someone was firing from above.
Like from one of the nearby apartments. On Monday that detective and another came back and searched the grass by that building before knocking on doors inside. Darryl Lucas, whose mother and the boy's mother are friends, said it's not uncommon here for someone to just shoot a gun.
When asked what he thinks it would take before someone realizes that they could potentially be shooting at an 11-year-old boy, Lucas said: "Common sense. Common sense. Basically if you just … I mean, that could've been anybody, honestly."
"To just fire a bullet like that, a shot like that, I can't understand why someone would do that," Walters said.
One police theory of the shooting is that whoever fired the weapon may have done so randomly, either while showing off, or fooling around.
Kelly is doing fine, but will stay in the hospital for a few days, as a precaution.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
2009 Celebrity Deaths
Click to enlarge
Stumble It!
Reporting
Comments