A 6-month-old baby was fatally shot Monday while riding in a car in Atlanta, the AP reports. The shooting happened near a convenience store and a school in northwest Atlanta, news outlets reported. The child's mother told WSB-TV that she was driving when she came upon a gunfight between people in two cars. She said a bullet traveled into the back of her car and hit the baby. The child was pronounced dead at Grady Memorial Hospital, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported. There was no immediate word on arrests.
Police Chief Rodney Bryant did not provide details at the scene but said the mother was “riding down the street and became a victim to gun violence," the newspaper reported. Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens, who went to the scene, remarked that "children are bearing the burden and the pain of adults who are choosing to use guns to solve disputes," the Journal-Constitution reported. “The children are bearing this burden with their lives and I’m here to ask and demand that it stop right now,” he said.
This is the third shooting of a child in the city this year, the Journal-Constitution reports. On Jan. 12, a 1-year-old died after a child found an unsecured gun and fired it, hitting the 1-year-old, whose mother was charged with second-degree murder. On Wednesday, a 5-year-old was also caught in the crossfire of a shooting between two drivers, and was grazed by a bullet as he sat in the backseat of an unrelated vehicle. He is in stable condition. (More Atlanta stories.)