Last Monday, in St. Louis, Missouri, a 12yr old and a 14yr old lost their life, due to gun play. As seen on live, the two kids were streaming live, showing off guns, while in a bathroom at a family party.
According to People Magazine, family members say the deaths of cousins Kuaron Harvey and Paris Harvey resulted from a “freak accident”
Police say a 12-year-old girl fatally shot her 14-year-old cousin, then herself, in a live broadcast on Instagram that the girl’s mother portrayed as a “freak accident” that occurred during a family party.
The St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department initially described the deaths of Kuaron Harvey, 14, and Paris Harvey, 12, as a murder-suicide, reports TV station KSDK.
But family members who watched the video said it showed otherwise.
“It was no murder. It wasn’t a suicide,” said Paris’ mother, Shinise Harvey, 35, who did not see the video but heard it described by others, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “It was a freak accident.”
“Everybody was getting together to celebrate, and so the younger kids, they got a bed and breakfast,” Harvey said, according to KSDK.
“They were making a video, and (Paris) was playing with the gun, but it went off and hit him.”
The girl’s grandmother, Susan Dyson, who had seen the Instagram Live video, told the Post-Dispatch: “It wasn’t a situation where they were arguing or anything like that. They were playing with the gun, when they shouldn’t have been. Of course, they shouldn’t have been doing it. I think it just went off. It went off by mistake.”
Police still are investigating who owned the gun and whether anyone might face related charges, reports KSDK. Neither of the children’s mothers was present at the party.
The police department later posted a graphic depicting white lilies to its official Facebook page, along with the words, “We are sending our heartfelt condolences to the family of 12-year-old Paris Harvey & 14-year-old Kuaron Harvey who tragically passed away on 3/25/22.”
This incident is very sad. It’s beyond unfortunate. It shows how kids love to do things for online attention. It demonstrates the importance of knowing where your guns are at all times.
We must do better with keeping guns away from young ones. The video was very short and just like that the kids were gone.
My prayers go out to the family and my hope is that families can do better, whether at a party or not.
Leave a Reply