10-year-old charged with accidentally shooting his 12-year-old brother

A 10-year-old boy has been charged with shooting his 12-year-old brother in the chest Sunday morning. Police said the shooting was an accident, though details of how it happened and whose gun he used remained unclear.

The boy, whom police did not identify because of his age, has been charged in juvenile court with aggravated assault, illegal gun possession, and related offenses after investigators say he shot his older brother inside their Strawberry Mansion home. The 12-year-old was taken to Temple University Hospital, where he was in stable condition, police said.

Deputy Police Commissioner Frank Vanore said investigators believed that the boy took the .40-caliber handgun from a house, possibly a relative’s, and brought it to his home. He said the shooting did not appear to be deliberate.

“I believe it was an accidental discharge,” Vanore said. “But he took the gun knowingly from there to here, and while inside the house it discharged. It’s still accidental, but his actions resulted in someone being shot.”

Vanore said the boy was released to his mother Sunday night.

Reached by phone Monday, one of the boy’s relatives said she was too overwhelmed to speak about what happened.

Vanore said police are working to determine whose gun the boy used, and how he got ahold of it. Additional people may be charged, he said.

In a statement, Commissioner Danielle Outlaw called the shooting a tragedy.

“A 12-year-old child has just been shot by a 10-year-old sibling with a gun that was left unattended by an adult,” Outlaw said. “Tragedies such as these have an impact on everyone, from the immediate family to the community, and everyone in between: siblings, parents, grandparents, friends, teachers, doctors, police officers, and neighbors. Our thoughts are with the survivors.”

District Attorney Larry Krasner encouraged all gun owners, especially parents, to keep their firearms unloaded and secured ina safe place — or not own one at all.

“I would encourage parents not to get a gun, because the truth is that you’re in about five times as much danger if you put a gun in your home as if you don’t,” he said, comparing firearms to “keeping hand grenades around the house.”

“If everybody kept hand grenades around the house, you’d hear a lot of booms. Because that’s what happens,” he said.

At least 37 children under the age of 18 have been shot in Philadelphia this year. Five have died.

At least one of those shootings was accidental, police said. In January, in the city’s Logan section, a 12-year-old boy was shot in the arm after his 6-year-old cousin accidentally fired an unsecured gun, police said.