The incident happened in the small town of Mountain Village, Alaska over the weekend
A child has shot and killed another child with a rifle during a Nerf gun flight in Alaska, according to authorities.
The incident happened over the weekend in the small town of Mountain Village, Alaska. Alaska State Troopers said in a press release that they were notified at 1:45 a.m. local time by tribal and village police of a deceased minor.
Authorities said the two children were playing with the toy guns when one of them picked up a rifle and fatally shot the other one. The children have not been publicly identified.
“Health aides responded and declared the injured child deceased on scene,” the release reads.
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():focal(999x0:1001x2)/alaska-080223-090859a67fae4fb18146dd60e8657bc5.jpg)
Alaska.
Getty
The child’s next of kin has been notified and the State Medical Examiner’s Office asked for their remains to be sent to Anchorage for an autopsy. According to The New York Post, Mountain Village is around 470 miles northwest of Anchorage.
“Due to the size of the community that this tragic event occurred and our requirement to protect juvenile information we will not be releasing the ages of those involved and are identifying them as young children,” John Dougherty of the Alaska Department of Public Safety said, per CBS News.
Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage? Sign up for PEOPLE’s free True Crime newsletter for breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases.
According to the outlet, the town is home to roughly 600 people. Dougherty added that an adult was inside the residence at the time of the shooting, but no charges will be filed in connection with the incident.
According to the Anchorage Daily News, troopers spokesman Austin McDaniel said the other child got the rifle from the home where the shooting occurred.
McDaniel did not confirm who the rifle belonged to. Per The New York Post, the incident is still under investigation.
If proven to be accidental, the Mountain Village shooting will be the first child shooting in Alaska this year, according to the Everytown database.
Categories: Trends
Source: HIS Education