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.
Higher oil prices would also help fill Russian President Vladimir Putin's coffers as his country wages war on Ukraine.
The Sanders County Sheriff’s Office says the cars aren't believed to be carrying anything hazardous.
He is expected to be joined in Florida by supporters as he tries to project an image of strength and defiance and turn the charges into a political asset to boost his 2024 presidential campaign.
Oregon's state house passed a requirement for electronic alerts in a shooting while Missouri's approved more money for school security technology.
Right-wing figures have cited the shooting to falsely claim there's been a rise in transgender mass shooters and that the fight for trans rights is radicalizing people.
A voting machine company’s defamation case against Fox News over its airing of false allegations about the 2020 presidential election will go to trial
Cheddars News' Chloe Aiello explains why getting your passport takes so long.
The federal government has filed a lawsuit against railroad Norfolk Southern over environmental damage caused by a train derailment on the Ohio-Pennsylvania border that spilled hazardous chemicals.
Meanwhile, hundreds of people protested Thursday for stricter gun controls at the state Capitol.
The charges in the indictment, made by a Manhattan grand jury, center on payments made during the 2016 presidential campaign to silence claims of an extramarital sexual encounter.
