On Saturday afternoon, October 3, in the quiet rural village of White Pine in east Tennessee, the unthinkable happened. The mother of 8-year-old McKayla Dyer found her daughter lying on the ground with a gunshot wound to her chest. The little girl was taken by Jefferson County EMS to the hospital in the nearby city of Morristown, where she later died. Jefferson County Sheriff's Department and White Pine Police also responded to the call.
More on this sad story below the orange thing.
Sheriff Bud McCoig said the young girl's next-door neighbor, a 5th grader at White Pine Elementary School, used his father's shotgun to shoot and kill the girl from inside his house. During the investigation officers also found a BB pistol. The boy was charged with first degree murder in juvenile court and is in custody. A detention hearing was scheduled for 11 am on Monday morning. A judge could determine at a later date if the case should be transferred to adult court.
Sheriff McCoig said the shooting happened in a neighborhood where all the kids knew each other and played together. The victim was in third grade at the same school attended by the boy who shot her. A commenter on one of the local news sites drew a not-so-pretty picture, however, saying that the boy was known to bully McKayla and that he lured her over to the window of his house "to show her something" and then shot her. None of the news stories have any details on where the boy's parents were at the time.
I am finding the entire story absolutely appalling. Where were this boy's parents? Why did he have access to a BB pistol without parental supervision inside the house on a Saturday afternoon? And WHY did he have access to his father's loaded shotgun at any time?
There are already people calling for this case to be moved to adult court and for the boy to be charged as an adult. I don't think that's the answer. I do think, however, that his parents should be charged, and charged severely, because he had access to a loaded weapon and because he used it to kill someone. I'm not sure what charges they should face. Reckless endangerment and criminal negligence, for a start. I'm not so sure accessory to murder would be wrong either.