Girl, 11, injured in accidental shooting
Witnesses say child, who is out of the hospital, picked up handgun, shot herself
An accidental shooting late Saturday afternoon wounded an 11-year-old girl at an apartment complex in the city’s midtown area, Santa Fe police said.
The girl had picked up a handgun on the grounds of the Sangre de Cristo Apartments and the weapon discharged, firing a bullet into her knee, according to a report. Family members rushed the girl to a local hospital.
In a phone interview Monday, the girl’s mother said she is “OK, she’s out of the hospital.”
The mother said she did not know who owned the gun her daughter found. The woman asked not to be identified.
Greg Gurulé, a spokesman for the Santa Fe Police Department, said officers are investigating the incident and no charges have been filed.
The police report says a witness told officers he saw the girl, who was playing outside with her brothers, “bend down to pick something up.” Then he heard a pop and saw the girl fall to the ground.
A man and woman then ran out of an apartment, picked her up and ran off with her, the witness said.
A second neighbor told police a similar story and said she called 911.
Gurulé said the girl was already on her way to Christus St. Vincent Regional Medical Center when officers arrived.
The incident occurred in the wake of four violent deaths of Northern New Mexico teens, including three in shootings.
The most recent death, the shooting of 18-year-old Santa Fe High basketball star Fedonta “JB” White, spurred community leaders to put out a call last week for adults to support young people — and to help keep firearms out of the hands of children.
Police suspect 16-year-old Estevan Montoya of killing White in the early hours of Aug. 1 at a party in Chupadero.
Schools Superintendent Veronica García said in a public talk last week, “We would like to see more gun safety.” She urged the Legislature to tighten gun safety laws.
Miranda Viscoli, co-president of the nonprofit New Mexicans to Prevent Gun Violence, agreed. “Our youth in Santa Fe and in New Mexico have way too much access to firearms,” she said in the virtual news conference with García on Aug. 3.
Mayor Alan Webber offered a similar message in a talk that day with Deputy Chief Ben Valdez and Chief Andrew Padilla.
“We want to lock guns up. We want to get guns off the street,” Webber said.
Webber, Padilla and Valdez also urged gun owners who no longer use their firearms to give them up to the police department for destruction.
A recent report by Everytown for Gun Safety said unintentional shootings by children increased significantly nationwide in March and April of this year, with at least 21 accidental gun deaths — a 43 percent increase compared to the same time period over the last three years.
The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia Research Institute released a report this year that found 89 percent of unintentional shootings of children occur in the home, usually when kids are playing with a loaded gun.