Taunton cops: Boys’ Facebook argument erupted into shooting

Two young boys argued on Facebook Monday before one shot and wounded the other with a rifle, Taunton police said yesterday.

“That day, there was a lobby of exchanges via instant Facebook messenger,” Taunton police Lt. Paul Roderick said.

He described the online exchange between the 13-year-old suspect and the 12-year-old, who was shot as an “argument.”

Roderick said a longsimmering feud between the pair apparently boiled over and turned violent.

“It does appear that it was an ongoing neighborhood dispute for a long time,” Roderick said.

Police say the 13-yearold used his family’s .22 caliber rifle to shoot the 12-year-old.

A relative of the boy who was shot told the Herald a bullet went through the boy’s arm and then entered his abdomen.

The relative said the boy had to have part of his colon removed.

People at the home of the teen who was charged in the shooting declined to comment yesterday.

The 13-year-old was arraigned in Taunton juvenile court on charges of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, gun possession and firing a gun within 500 feet of a dwelling.

The boy was slated to have a dangerousness hearing yesterday.

Juvenile hearings are not open to the public.

Roderick said after the exchange on Facebook, the 12-year-old and two other boys confronted the 13-year-old near his home. At some point, the teen went inside and grabbed a rifle.

Cops say the mother possessed the rifle lawfully and had it secured in their house.

Roderick said, in addition to seizing the rifle, police confiscated from the home a Mossberg long gun as well as a .40-caliber Smith & Wesson.

Police yesterday had not determined if any adult in the home would have a gun license suspended or revoked, Roderick said.