Police: Boy fatally shoots brother

A 10-year-old boy fatally shot his 6-year-old brother in the head Wednesday morning with their mother’s handgun while they were alone inside their mobile home in West Mifflin, Allegheny County Police said.

JulianHoffman died just before 11 a.m. at a local hospital, about an hour after West Mifflin police responded to 108 Dover Lane in the New Colony Mobile Home Park fora reported shooting.

Julian was struck when his brother discharged a single round from their mother’s 9 mm declined to say how the gun was pistol while in her bedroom, Superintendent stored or how the 10-year-old had Colemanaccess to the weapon. Police are McDonough said. The preliminary still figuring out the circumstances investigation indicates that of the shooting, he said. their mother legally purchased The mother could face criminal the weapon, he said. charges, Superintendent

The boy’s 10-year-old brother McDonough said. She left the called his mother after the shooting home earlier Wednesday morning and then called 911. Neither to go to work, he said. has been publicly named. “Every firearm should be

The boys’ mother was at work treated as loaded,” he said. during the incident, and her livein “Every firearm should be secured boyfriend was not home, Superintendent with a gun lock. There is McDonough said. really no excuse for a weapon to He was not sure where the boyfriend get in the hands of a child.” was at the time. Investigators do not have any

Superintendent McDonough indication that the 10-year-old intentionally shot his brother, Superintendent McDonough said, but added police are still gathering facts.

“The boy is 10 years old, by law he could be charged as a delinquent child,” he said. “But again, that would be a decision for the district attorney’s office.”

Neighbor David Meier said he heard loud noises and screaming Wednesday morning but didn’t think much of it until he saw the police response later in the day.

“It’s terrible,” he said, standing on his porch watching

investigators dip in and out of the home next door. “It’s a tragedy.”

Katie Morgan, 38, who lives nearby, said her 5year-old daughter was best friends with Julian. She still had not told her daughter about Julian’s death Wednesday night.

When asked how she was going to tell her daughter, Ms. Morgan, through tears, said, “I don’t know.”

Ms. Morgan said she saw Julian and his older brother every day, and she would take care of them, feed them and watch them play in the street.

But Ms. Morgan and other neighbors said they rarely saw the boys’ mother and didn’t know her name. Theysaid the mother would leave for work in the morningthen not return until the early morning hours the nextday.

“Every adult looks out for [Julian and his brother] because there’s no adult here,” Ms. Morgan said.

Neighbors said they were unaware there was a gun in the boys’ house. They blamed the mother and her boyfriend for Julian’s death because the children were leftunsupervised.

“The child does not deserve to go to jail,” Ms. Morgan said. “The mother does, andso does the boyfriend.”