3-Year-Old Houston Boy Fatally Shot by Mom’s Boyfriend: Police

A 3-year-old Houston boy is dead after police say a man thought to be his mother’s boyfriend broke into where she was “seeking safety” from him following an argument and fired at the two of them with an “assault type” rifle. The mother was also wounded and the gunman was shot dead by a police officer at the scene, Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo said at a late-night news conference. “Our folks are pretty shaken up,” Acevedo said of the “heart-wrenching” reality that “a little child’s life has ended here.” The mother, who was not identified, was in stable condition late Friday. The gunman, who was also not identified, had opened fire on the officer before being hit by return fire and pronounced dead, police said. Acevedo, who seemed fed up with recent gun violence that he attributed partly to the coronavirus pandemic, lamented that the shooting will go down as “just a footnote” in “the annals in this country of victims of gun violence.” “Tomorrow or the next day we’ll never talk about this family again. We will never talk about this child again as a society … and nothing will be done by members of the legislature, by members of Congress,” he said.