‘Babies kill babies’: Teenager charged in shooting that killed a three-year-old and injured a seven-year-old

BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) — Two teenagers were charged Tuesday in the fatal shooting of a 3-year-old boy as he rode his tricycle outside his Buffalo home last week, officials said. The toddler’s 7-year-old sister was injured.

“Literally babies killing babies,” Mayor Byron Brown said as city leaders announced the charges against a 14-year-old and a 16-year-old at an evening press conference.

Three-year-old Ramone Carter and 7-year-old Jamia Griffin were not the intended targets when the suspects shot another young person around 9:30 p.m. on June 21, said Erie County Assistant District Attorney Michael Keane.

The children’s mother, Shakenya Griffin, told The Buffalo News the next morning that she heard gunshots and ran outside to look for her children.

“He ran straight at me and was covered in blood,” she said. “I collapsed in my neighbor’s grass and said, ‘Call 911.'”

Keane said each of the teens fired an illegal weapon, one of them a pistol and the other a revolver. Both boys were charged with murder, attempted murder, assault and weapons possession and were being held without bail in a juvenile detention center. The older boy would be tried as an adult if convicted, the prosecutor said.

The names of the teenagers were withheld due to age reasons.

Police Chief Joseph Gramaglia thanked the witnesses for their cooperation, which had led the police to the trail of the suspects, and recalled that the officers who arrived at the scene had themselves taken Ramone to the hospital in the hope of saving him.

“They were able to get the poor baby into a police car and take him to Erie County Medical Center to give him a chance,” Gramaglia said. “Unfortunately, we all know that wasn’t the case. The baby was pronounced dead at the hospital.”

When asked whether the shootings could be gang-related, Keane declined to comment on a possible motive.

“It seemed like they were targeting someone else,” Brown said. “But the fact that these kids had guns and were so willing to use them indiscriminately is why we are at this point today.”

The Associated Press