Houston (Texas) [US], September 2: An 11-year-old boy in Houston, Texas (USA) was shot dead while playing a prank of ringing someone else's doorbell and running away.
The boy was shot multiple times while ringing the doorbell with his friends in a residential area in Houston's Eastside at 11 p.m. on August 30, according to The Guardian on September 1.
Houston police have not released the identity of the boy or the homeowner, but have arrested a middle-aged man and recovered several weapons from his home.
A witness said he saw the boy ring the doorbell and run from the house before he was shot. The boy was taken to hospital and pronounced dead on August 31.
Authorities used loudspeakers to urge residents of the neighborhood to put their hands in the air and leave their homes. Police detained one person for questioning and brought him back inside.
Neighbors in the neighborhood told local media that they saw a handcuffed man being led from a police car into the house where the incident took place.
Houston Police Department homicide detective Michael Cass told local media that a witness saw someone come out of the house and "shoot at kids running down the street." "Unfortunately, one of the boys, an 11-year-old, was shot in the back," Cass added.
The police officer added that the suspect could face murder charges because the shooting happened not near the house, so it probably could not be considered an act of self-defense.
According to The Guardian , doorbell ringing pranks have led to fatalities before. In May of this year, a Virginia man was charged with murder after shooting and killing a teenager who had filmed a TikTok video of him ringing the doorbell at 3 a.m., according to local police reports.
In 2023, a California man was convicted of murder and denied parole for intentionally ramming six teenagers who rang his doorbell in 2020. The crash killed three people.
Source: Thanh Nien Newspaper