Moments after two children were playing with toy guns, one of the children picked up a real rifle in a western Alaska home and fatally shot the other child, authorities said.
Alaska State Troopers were notified by both tribal and local police Sunday of the child’s death in Mountain Village, the statewide law enforcement agency said.
Troopers responded and found “two children were playing with Nerf guns when one of them picked up a rifle and shot the other one,” the troopers said in an online statement.
Village health aides declared the child dead, and the body will be sent to Anchorage for an autopsy.
The child got the rifle inside the home where the shooting occurred, and an adult was inside the home at the time, troopers spokesperson Austin McDaniel told the Anchorage Daily News.
No criminal charges have been filed, and McDaniel said the investigation is ongoing. The Anchorage newspaper reported it’s rare for a gun owner in Alaska to be prosecuted when someone is killed or injured when a child obtains the weapon.
Few details about the children involved, including names and ages, will be released “due to the size of the community that this tragic event occurred and our requirement to protect juvenile information,” McDaniel said.
Mountain Village, a Yup’ik community of 600 people who practice a traditional subsistence lifestyle, is located about 470 miles (756 kilometers) northwest of Anchorage.
President Joe Biden signed an executive order on Tuesday that contains more than 50 directives to increase access to child care and improve the work life of caregivers.
State police in Maine say gunfire that erupted on busy highway is linked to a second crime scene where four people were found dead in a home about 25 miles away.
If you're expecting a tax refund, it could be smaller than last year. And with inflation still high, that money won’t go as far as it did a year ago.
Fox and Dominion Voting Systems have reached a $787 million settlement in the voting machine company’s defamation lawsuit.
Tech giant Apple has launched a high-yield savings account with a 4.15 percent annual interest rate. The company said there are no fees, minimum deposits, or minimum balance requirements, and users can set up and manage their savings account directly using "Apple Card."
Police in New York have arrested two men for allegedly setting up a secret police station for a Chinese provincial police agency to collect information on opponents of the ruling Communist Party.
An Ohio grand jury declined to indict eight police officers who fired 94 shots in the death of Jayland Walker, a 25-year-old Black man who fired at least one round at officers during a car and foot chase last summer, the state's attorney general announced Monday.
Authorities say a 20-year-old woman on her way to a friend’s house in upstate New York was driven to the wrong address and quickly shot to death by the homeowner.
Justice Department officials say the two men, U.S. citizens, were working on behalf of the Chinese government.
Andrew Lester, an 84-year-old white man in Kansas City, Missouri, has been charged with first-degree assault for shooting Yarl in the head and arm as the 16-year-old approached Lester's house, thinking it was where he needed to pick up his younger brothers.
