Three year-old Dalis Cox was playing with her brother Wednesday night, just like many other nights, when police say the girl was accidentally shot twice in the chest.
Cox was in her mother’s apartment with her 7 year-old brother and one of their friends when the brother somehow got hold of a gun and accidentally shot the girl, The Washington Times reports.
Now Washington, D.C., police are trying to figure out how the gun got into the house.
D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier Told reporters at a press conference Thursday the gun was unregistered and being illegally kept in the city. Detectives do not know who the owner of the gun is or how it got into the apartment.
“We have no reason to believe that it’s anything other than an accident, so what we’re looking at is how the gun got into the house,” Lanier said. “We believe it was a young child that got their hands on a gun.”
Lanier didn’t say whether there were any other firearms found in the house, and police are still discussing whether criminal charges will be filed. Lanier said police were on their way to another call from the apartment building a little after 8 p.m. when officers heard the two shots and someone started screaming.
The police officers found Cox in the apartment and rushed her to the hospital, but it was too late for the little girl. She died about an hour and a half later in the hospital.
“My heart goes out to Dalis and her family. The gun should have never been in a place where it could have been accidentally or otherwise used to put a little girl in danger,” D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser said at the press conference.
The girl’s father told The Washington Post the last time he saw his daughter alive was Wednesday evening when he went to visit her before work. He told the paper the two played and laughed, and when it was time for him to leave, his daughter wanted to come with him.
“She said, ‘Daddy, I want to come with you,’ ” he said. “I said, ‘Baby, I have to go to work. I will be back to get you the next time.’ ”
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