US Boy, 11, Held for Shooting Dead Eight-Year-Old Neighbor

Local Editor

An 11-year-old boy in the US state of Tennessee had been held on suspicion of shooting dead an eight-year-old neighbor in a row over a puppy.

The boy had been charged with first-degree murder as a juvenile.

According to police, he shot the girl on Saturday evening with his father's shotgun after she refused to let him see her puppy.

The girl had been identified as McKayla Dyer. Her mother Latasha said that the two children went to the same school.

"He was making fun of her, calling her names, just being mean to her. He quit for a while and then all of a sudden yesterday he shot her," Ms. Dyer told WATE-TV.

"I want her back in my arms," she said.

Neighbor Chastity Arwood told WBIR News that she heard the shot ring out and saw McKayla lying on the grass.

"Trying to comfort her mama and her aunt and her grandma and her grandpa and her sister and her brother was the hardest thing I ever had to do," Ms. Arwood said.
The boy is scheduled to appear in court again on 28 October.

The Gun Violence Archive, a not-for-profit organization that compiles data on gun violence in the US, said 559 children aged 11 or under had been killed or injured in the United States in gun violence so far this year.

Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team