Boy shot ID’d as Kentrell Pouncey, Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office says
A 5-year-old boy was fatally shot in a south suburban home Thursday night, city officials said.
Calumet City police and fire officials responded to a home in the 200-block of Paxton Avenue about 9 p.m. for a report of a child who had been shot, officials said.
When police arrived, they found a 5-year-old with a gunshot wound to the head and immediately began life-saving measures, officials said.
The child was taken to Advocate Children’s Hospital in Oak lawn, where he died just before 10:15 p.m., according to officials.
Preliminary investigation shows a gun went off in the home once, but it was not immediately clear how the child was wounded, officials said.
The Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office identified the boy as Kentrell Pouncey, who lived on the block where the incident took place.
Calumet City detectives are investigating the circumstances surrounding the incident.
Police said one of Pouncey’s siblings had brought the gun into the home after finding it somewhere without their mother’s knowledge.
There were four children in the house, all under the age of 15, with their mother at the time of the incident, police said, all siblings.
Police said there were three boys and one girl.
“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. Earth has no sorrow that heaven cannot heal.”
Calumet City Police Chief Kevin Kolosh said all parents need to talk to their children about gun safety during a press conference Friday morning.
“Parents need to have talks with their children, whether or not they have guns in the house, and the conversation should specifically state, ‘do not touch the guns, and if you see a gun, notify a responsible adult,'” he said.
The Illinois Department of Children and Family Services has been notified, and the other siblings were placed with other family members, officials said.
Officials said the family is cooperating with police.
Source: ABC7 Chicago
