MILLEDGEVILLE, Ga. — A 10-year-old Georgia boy has died at an Atlanta hospital after a friend shot him in the head with a pellet gun.
The child, identified as CJ Patton, was shot in Milledgeville on Sunday by 17-year-old Jamarius Walls, police said. Walls was arrested and charged with one count of involuntary manslaughter Thursday morning.
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A GoFundMe set up by friends of the family called the shooting accidental, and said CJ was shot in the temple and the pellet lodged in his brain. He was flown to Scottish Rite Children’s Hospital, where he died Wednesday.
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The community is now trying to raise $15,000 to help the family pay for funeral expenses.
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“Nobody was prepared for this day whatsoever, let alone the high costs of a funeral,” GoFundMe organizers wrote. “As a mother, she is already having to endure the most heartbreaking situation a mother would ever have to go through, and my hopes are to take the financial burden off of her completely.”
This is the third Georgia child to die after being shot in just 24 hours. Last night, a 9-year-old boy was shot and killed in southeast Atlanta. His identity has not been released.
On Thursday morning, a 15-year-old with special needs was shot to death by his mother, who took her own life, at a home in Lawrenceville.