ST. LOUIS — A four-year-old girl shot and killed late Monday night by her sibling in north St. Louis has left a community in mourning and gun violence prevention advocates calling for more gun locks at home.
In addition to the girl, three other children ranging in age from 4 to 10 — including the girl's twin — were left alone at a home in the 700 block of Thrush Avenue with a gun that was easily accessible, police said.
One of the other children found the unsecured gun and fired it, striking the 4-year-old girl, police said. An officer who responded performed CPR in the backseat of a patrol car as another officer drove the girl to a hospital, where she was pronounced dead.
"This is going to be one of those that I can assure you, they will not forget this," St. Louis police spokesperson Mitch McCoy said. "When the mom left to go to the store, there were two kids that ended up finding that firearm and accidentally pulled the trigger on it."
The children called 911 from inside the home. The girl's mother still wasn't home when police arrived.
"A four-year-old girl is dead, and it was preventable if that firearm had been locked up and stored away," McCoy said.
A volunteer with Lock It for Love, a program that's part of Women's Voices Raised for Social Justice, said they've passed out almost 6,000 free gun locks in the St. Louis area.
"Even if you think you have it hidden somewhere where you think a child will not figure out where it is, there is always that chance that somebody is following you around and sees where you hide something," volunteer Karen Cloyd said. "It has to be secured. It needs to be in a locked case."
Precious Jones is someone who's advocating for the use of gun locks. Jones, the founder of Breaking Generational Poverty, lost her 20-year-old son and 19-year-old nephew to gun violence.
"In that area where mom lives, that is a high crime area," Jones said. "It makes me wonder, 'Why did mom have a gun? Did mom have a gun in the home because she was a single mom?' So she feels she has to protect her children?"
In partnership with St. Louis police, SSM Cardinal Glennon Children's Hospital has gun locks available.
Since June 2020, Dr. Renee Manley-Markowski, a pediatric emergency physician, said they've treated more than 30 kids younger than 5 who've been shot.
"(Younger children sometimes don't) realize that they are real weapons or the implications of playing with them," Manley-Markowski said.
Police said they are working with the St. Louis Circuit Attorney's Office to determine if criminal charges will be filed.