PREVENTABLE

10-Year-Old Accidentally Shoots and Kills 8-Year-Old Brother

The children were home alone with their 13-year-old brother when the shotgun discharged, police say.

An 8-year-old boy in Texas was killed Monday after his 10-year-old brother accidentally shot him, authorities say. The 10-year-old boy was playing with a shotgun in their family’s Houston apartment when it accidentally discharged. A 13-year-old sibling who was also home at the time called the police, and the 8-year-old boy was pronounced dead at the scene. “These situations are preventable. Children should never have access to weapons. Anything could happen,” Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez said. The kids weren’t in school at the time as the family had recently moved from Venezuela to Houston, Gonzalez said. Investigators are looking into who owned the gun and criminal charges are possible, he said.