A 12-year-old girldied Tuesday after she was shot in an apparently unintentional shootinginside her parent's SUV at a Frayser apartment complex, and police brought charges against the girl's mother as well as against another child.
Police identified the girl who diedas Tytkeanna James.
Charges of aggravated child abuse and criminally negligent homicide havebeen filed against the girl's mother, 33-year-old Katrena Blackshire, Memphispolice said on Twitter.
The police also said a 13-year-old boy - a relative of the girl - was charged with reckless homicide.
Many unintentional shootingshave killed and wounded children in Memphis in recent years, and the incidentdrew a strongly worded response fromcity leadership.
"Once again, we as a community mourn the loss of a child due to what appears to be an accidental shooting because a gun was left unsecure," Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland wrote on Twitter."As mayor and as a parent, I send my prayers and condolences to the family."
"For our children’s sake, we MUST do better as a community," he wrote."And we are here to help. We give away free gun locks at all MPD precincts. If you choose to have a gun, stop by a police precinct TODAY to get a gun lock, so that we can keep this kind of tragedy from happening again."
Gun safety experts also recommend additional steps in addition to a gun lock, including storing the weapons inside a locked safe and keeping ammunition locked upseparately.
"A gun lock should be used as an additional safety precaution and not as a substitute for secure storage," MPD firearms instructor Officer Marion Hannah says in an MPD video the department circulated Tuesday.
The department had also circulated the same safety video in late May, following an unintentional shooting that critically injured a two-year-old girl.
A joint investigationby the Associated Press and the USA TODAY Network found that Memphis ranks first in unintentional shootings of minors among the nation’s large cities inpopulationover a period stretching from Jan. 1, 2014 through June 30, 2016.
In total number of incidents, Memphis’s 19 shootings ranked second only behind Chicago, which had 28.
Four of the 19 shootings during that period resulted in fatalities, and several more unintentional shootings of children have taken place since then.
Memphis police said the investigation is ongoing, but Tytkeanna died at Le Bonheur Children's Hospital at 10:20 a.m., about three hours after the shooting.
MPD received a shooting call shortly before 8 a.m. in the 3100 block of Madewell Street at the Greenbriar Apartments in Frayser.
"It appears that a gun was left unsecured prior to the shooting," Memphis police public information officers said on Twitter.
According to the tweet, the girl was inside of her parent's vehicle whenshe was somehow shot.
Hattie Porter with Neighborhood Christian Center, an agency that provides assistance to children and families at several centers throughout the city, said the girland her siblings were waiting to catch the center's busfor a field trip prior to the shooting.
She said the girl and her family donot live at the complex.
"I was atthe Robinhood site, and I just came over when I got the call," Porter said. "Whatever is going on I don't know. I prayed that the Lord intervene. That was my prayer all the way here."
Porter said she is godmother to the 12-year-old's mother and mentored the woman when she was a child in the center's program.
"Now her children are part of our program," Porter said.
When asked to describe and talk about the 12-year-old girl, Porter was overcome with emotionand her husband, Otis Porter, stopped the interview with the media.
Ephie Johnson, Neighborhood Christian Center president, was also on the scene and was devasted by the shooting, but tried to stay positive.
"We help bring love and light to the community, and I hope people receive it," Johnson said.
The shooting occurred in the apartment's back parking lot near the Neighborhood Christian Center. Police tape blocked the entrance and investigators surrounded a red SUV.
Neighbors said after sirens woke them up, they came outside to find the girl bleeding on the ground near the vehicle.
"Who would shoot a little girl?" resident Latonya McGhee asked as she stood at the scene with other neighbors.
At the time, the girl's mother and the 13-year-old relative of the girl were in the back of separate police cars and were being questioned by officers on the scene.
