Authorities in North Carolina said Wednesday that a three-year-old boy was fatally shot after gunmen fired almost 150 rounds into a home in a drive-by shooting incident. The Tuesday night shooting happened while the boy, identified as Asiah Figueroa, was sleeping, NBC News reported.
Asiah’s sister was also wounded in the shooting. The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department said the incident happened at the 2400 block of Richard Rozzell Drive, adding that multiple shooters fired several rounds into the home. The home the deceased was in, was also hit by a number of those bullets.
Footage of the incident that was shared by the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department on Twitter shows two cars pulling up in front of a home before shots ring out for over ten seconds. The cars then drive off.
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Officers who later arrived at the scene rushed Asiah to a hospital where he succumbed to his injuries. “I don’t know why this happened and I don’t know why this is going on, why the world can’t get together and just love one another,” Asiah’s great-grandmother Susie Whitley told WCNC.
“He was only three, hadn’t lived that long a life, and he was just taken away.”
Though the perpetrators are yet to be apprehended, investigators said they believe the shooting involved teenage students from high schools around the vicinity. “How can you wake up this morning knowing that your actions last night took the life of a 3-year-old, who will never get the opportunity to grow up and play, as you have?” CMPD Chief Johnny Jennings said in reference to the suspects, WBTV reported.
Meanwhile, officials at Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools told WCNC the district was planning on introducing intervention programs to mitigate such violent incidents. “Recent acts of violence involving and directed toward students assigned to attend Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools indicate a significant problem in our community,” a statement from the school said.
“These horrific acts are another terrible reminder of how disruptions in lives have caused pain for many families here, including for many CMS students. Violence resulting in death is a result of that pain.”
