2 children wounded in crossfi re while at play
Several children, including two siblings, were playing around a small tree in a courtyard at their East Side apartment complex on a sunny summer afternoon Wednesday when they suddenly became caught in a crossfire.
An 8-year-old boy was critically wounded and his 2-year-old sister was also wounded in the shooting about 4:20 p.m. in the 400 block of Mayfair Boulevard, Columbus police said.
The boy was in critical condition at Nationwide Children’s Hospital on Wednesday night and his prognosis was “touch and go,” said Sgt. Stan Latta, supervisor of the second-shift homicide squad. His little sister was in stable condition there.
“I hope to God he makes it,” said Sgt. Dave Sicilian, another homicide squad supervisor who was at the scene.
Latta said investigators believe the children were innocent bystanders caught in a crossfire involving at least two people firing.
“They kept climbing up and down that tree,” Bryant Scott recalled of some of the children, noting it is an everyday occurrence at the Mayfair Village Apartments where he resides. Then several residents told The Dispatch they heard what sounded at first like the rapid pop of leftover firecrackers from the Fourth of July. Except it wasn’t.
“I knew it wasn’t firecrackers. That’s why I came to the door,” Scott said. Witnesses estimated that there were at least 10 shots fired.
Some witnesses said they believed that one of the shooters was firing from a passing car. Latta said one of the guns that possibly could be connected to shooting was recovered in the Penfield Road area near Interstate 70, less than 4 miles from the shooting scene.
Another person was caught in the crossfire but somehow escaped unharmed. A young woman parked in a minivan on Mayfair Boulevard was talking on her cellphone when the gunfire shattered her driver’s side window. The side of her minivan was struck by at least three other bullets.
A woman who identified herself as an aunt of the two children said they are among four children in the family. Her sister and husband had followed her to Columbus from the Chicago area years ago, hoping for a quieter life. She declined to give her name or the names of the children.
“There are babies involved. You don’t kill no babies or old people,” she said.
It is the second major shooting incident involving children this week. Maniya Cannon, 9, had a bullet graze her cheek while she was sleeping about 1 a.m. Tuesday on the floor of her Republic Avenue house in North Linden. She was not seriously hurt.