Boy playing with pistol shoots self dead
A 15-YEAR-OLD boy died after accidentally shooting himself with a handgun he and his friends were playing with inside a Long Island home, police said Thursday.
Young Derek Cosme was at a friend’s house in Glen Cove on Wednesday night waiting for his mom and aunt to pick him up when the gun went off, wounding Derek. The boy died a short time later, according to cops.
Officials said the gun’s owner has a permit for the firearm. Neighbors said a retired Nassau County correction officer lives at the home where the tragedy occurred.
The teen’s distraught aunt, Rosa Vasquez, 50, reread the last texts Derek sent his mother moments before he pulled the trigger. His mother, Luz Vasquez, 51, was on her way with another sister to pick him up from the pal’s home. The mom had just left her kitchen job at Glen Care, a local nursing home, relatives said.
“Do you think you can pick me up at 8?” Derek said in a text to his mom at 6:40 p.m., the last communication he would ever have with her. “Where you at?” she replied. Nearly 90 minutes passed before she texted again.
“Coming now,” she wrote. “You not answering you walking.”
Vasquez said the mom and her other sister showed up to the Williams St. home unaware of what happened.
“There was no answer,” Vasquez said. “So it had to be after 6:40 and before 8 p.m. She was the last one texting him. They were on their way to pick him up at 8 o’clock. They showed up and see the police and ambulance everywhere, not knowing it was her son.”
“He was already dead in the house,” Vasquez said. “They were just destroyed. It was the worst thing that could happen.”
Vasquez said Derek was his sister’s only son. He is survived by four sisters.
“He was a sweet kid, happy, loved his nephews and nieces,” Vasquez said. “He was surrounded by four beautiful sisters. The only son my sister had. He was the youngest. He was the baby. She’s not holding up good. How would she? She just lost her son.”
Derek was heading into the 11th grade at Glen Cove High School.
According to police, three kids — all under age 16 — were playing with the handgun when Derek accidentally shot himself.
Vasquez said the family was told that the gun was not locked away.
“We need answers,” Vasquez said. “As an adult, who leaves a gun out of a safe lock? From what I understand, there were no adults there. It was only kids.”
Vasquez said Derek and the buddy he went to visit were inseparable.
“They were the best of friends,” Vasquez said. “They are good kids, too. So I can’t say nothing bad about them.”
The family has launched a GoFundMe page to offset the funeral expenses.
No family should carry such a burden alone,” the page says. “We are asking for help to relieve our family of the stress of these expenses, for all who loved Derek and our family to come together to provide a beautiful ceremony that he deserves.”