An 11-year-old Pennsylvania boy allegedly shot his father to death after previously having his Nintendo Switch handheld gaming system taken away.
The boy is facing criminal homicide charges after a 13 January shooting at his family’s home in Duncannon Borough.
As put in court documents obtained and reported by WGAL News 8, the case illustrates how easily children can access guns in the US, where firearms are ubiquitous.
The victim was reportedly discovered in the bedroom he shared with his wife, which court documents say is connected to their son’s bedroom by a closet.
Police reported it was the child’s birthday, and he had entered the bedroom shouting: “Daddy’s dead.” Troopers at the scene also reportedly said that they heard the son tell his mother: “I killed Daddy.”
Police said the shooting occurred after the couple had gone to bed shortly past midnight. The child reportedly told authorities that he had had a good day with his parents, but the documents reportedly state that he became “mad” when his father told him it was time to go to bed.
According to the news outlet, the court document says that the boy told police he found a key to the gun safe in his father’s drawer in his parent’s bedroom. He reportedly unlocked it while attempting to locate his Nintendo Switch – which had previously been taken away from him – and found a gun.
Jesus man. This is a horrific situation. That poor woman lost her husband and, effectively, her son in one night.
The fact that the kid could easily get into the safe makes it no such thing.
He had to find the key first, which he did. Sounds like it was one of those Stack-On type of cabinets that aren’t actually safes but are better than nothing. Plus this kid loaded the gun, he was on a mission.
Yeah no this is why you should only buy combo safes, with at least one that has no key to keep the keys to the rest.
Calling a locksmith is better than calling a coroner.
Or just effectively hide your key. It’s really not hard to keep a key hidden from a 11 year old.
My bet is it was somewhere dumb like in the same room above the door frame or in a drawer.
From the summary.
Oh for sure, but even with a good hiding place kids are shits and have a lotta time on their hands. ESPECIALLY after their preferred game/tablet/whatever has been taken away.
I’ll take no chance over low chance.
That makes it… not a horrific situation? What?
Makes the safe, not a safe.
Well, that makes much more sense.
Lol I was also confused, we can be dumb in solidarity today.
🤜🤛
Makes the safe no such thing.
Maybe something good can come out of it. The kid has serious issues which hopefully he gets intense therapy for, rather than not killing his dad and growing up being some psycho killer that terrorizes the general public.
The kid killed one of the only people that might have provided that care, and probably left the other in poverty.
The odds ain’t good.
Oh he’s going to be in the US prison system now. He will get next to zero mental health care provided.
Yep, 10 years old is the age in PA where a child can be charged with a crime. Placing him in the juvenile court/prison system. Under 10 and courts could only send him to a psychiatric facility.
He is still under the cutoff for where they could charge him as an adult (14).
At his age, that is not necessarily the case.
He’s likely going to have mental health issues now, as a result of the shooting.
As for pre-existing mental health issues; to me the most likely condition seems to be “was 11”, which most people grow out of. As a thought experiment, how many 11 year olds are there that you would be comfortable having a gun unsupervised.
The number of people in this comments who think that looking for the key to a gun safe, getting a gun out of it, loading it, and using it to murder someone is normal 11 year old behavior is insane. Kid has some serious issues to be capable of something like this
At 11 my dad had guns in the house, but not in a million years would my anger have made me think yo load his gun shoot him. (Plus ammo was hidden and locks separate from his guns)
That kid has serious unchecked emotional dysregulation in my opinion.
dont think therapy will help once you already murdered someone, it mightve help if he had ideations of it.
What did he do when he was told he’d never play Nintendo Switch again?