A 3-year-old boy in Detroit is fighting for his life in critical condition after being shot in the stomach, with Detroit police and Michigan State Police working in tandem to unravel conflicting accounts of the incident. As reported by WWJ Newsradio 950, the shooting occurred earlier today on the city's west side, yet mystery still shrouds the events leading up to the boy's injuries.
The child's parents are currently in custody, their narratives clashing and failing to piece together a coherent timeline or scenario, police shared no concrete details about the father's account, however, the boy's mother claimed she had left a teenager in charge of the 3-year-old and two other young children while she went to a laundromat, returning to the sound of gunfire according to the police, there has been no corroborating evidence of a shooting in or around the home, which remains a point of confusion for the investigators. As FOX 2 Detroit elucidates, the absence of shell casings or a gun, paired with the lack of ShotSpotter activation, a technology employed to detect and locate gunfire, has only deepened the enigma.
Detroit Police Asst. Chief Charles Fitzgerald expressed his bafflement about the case, acknowledging that none of the parents' narratives align with the evidence at hand, "The story's not making any sense at all. Conflicting stories from the mom, conflicting stories from the dad," Fitzgerald said in a statement obtained by FOX 2 Detroit. The task now falls to officers to sift through the conflicting statements in hopes of finding the truth while a child remains in a precarious state of health.
Local station WXYZ added that the shooting took place after midnight, and investigators have been unable to locate a weapon as of early this morning; left with more questions than answers, the parents' intentions and actions that night remain a matter open to speculation, Child Protective Services has been contacted as the three children are now under police care with both parents held for further questioning. Police have not disclosed where the toddler's father was during the time of the incident.
