Father Shoots Dead His Daughter For Wrongly Thinking He's a Thief in Garage
PERMATA POSTS KIND, COLUMBUS - An Ohio man shot dead his own 16-year-old daughter, mistaking her for a burglar who broke into the family home, local police said Thursday (12/30/2021).
The death of Janae Hairston, the girl's name, adds to the long list of victims of gun violence in the United States this year.
Her mother called emergency services at 4.30am Wednesday morning (12/29/2021) to report her daughter lying on the garage floor after being shot by her father who thought she was an intruder, police said.
The parents can be heard frantically begging their daughter to wake up, according to local newspaper The Columbus Dispatch, which obtained a recording of the call.
Emergency responders arrived minutes later and took Hairston to a local hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 5.42am.
"We are saddened by this tragic loss and will make every effort to help students and families cope," the Hairston school district said, in a note to parents published by the local press.
Meanwhile the AFP news agency reported that about a mile (kilometer) away, three other people aged six, nine and 22 were killed on December 7.
The two youngest victims were students in the same school district as Hairston on the outskirts of Columbus, the Ohio capital.
The Columbus Dispatch said 2021 was one of the deadliest years in the city's history in shootings and killings.
Since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, gun violence has sharply increased in the United States, where gun rights are contentious but largely protected by the constitution.
According to the Gun Violence Archives website, more than 44,000 people have been killed by guns in the United States this year, including suicides, of which 1,517 were minors.