St. Paul girl, 13, told police she was playing with gun, didn’t know it was loaded when she shot boy, 11

Mara H. Gottfried, Pioneer Press
Updated ·7 min read
45

The shooting of an 11-year-old boy, allegedly by a 13-year-old girl playing with a gun, was tragic and preventable, St. Paul’s police chief and Ramsey County’s head prosecutor said Monday as charges were filed against a man for negligent storage of firearms.

Children were playing with guns at the man’s St. Paul apartment when one went off and the 11-year-old was shot in the face, according to the criminal complaint filed Monday.

Paramedics took the boy to the hospital with a life-threatening injury and he underwent surgery. He remained in critical condition as of Monday afternoon, according to police.

The Ramsey County attorney’s office charged Martinez Castillo Lloyd, 34, with possession of a firearm by a person convicted of a crime of violence and negligently leaving a loaded firearm in a place where a person knows a child is likely to gain access, unless reasonable action is taken to secure the firearm.

Lloyd is the uncle of the 13-year-old girl arrested for allegedly shooting the boy, and his son is a friend of the victim.

“I just really hope that the little boy gets through it, and that he and his family can get prayers,” said Mia Comodore, who was previously in a relationship with Lloyd, and whose children, ages 11 and 12, were among those at his apartment. “I also want to make sure to get out the word: Don’t have guns in the houses because of situations like this. It’s just a nightmare.”

Ramsey County Attorney John Choi said Friday’s “tragedy is a painful reminder of the need to safely and securely store guns out of the reach of children.” His office has been funding gun locks since 2016 that are available for free to the community.

“This incident is tragic and infuriating,” said St. Paul Police Chief Axel Henry. “… If you’re not supposed to have guns, don’t have guns. If you have guns, you have a duty and a responsibility to keep them safe and away from those who shouldn’t have them. In this case no one should have had a gun, child or adult.”

‘Chaotic scene’

Two of Lloyd’s children were among a group of young people who are all friends, and some who are relatives, who were hanging out Friday night.

Officers responded to the Frogtown apartment building where Lloyd lives on Friday on a report of a shooting. They arrived about 8:55 p.m. to apartments on Pierce Butler Route and Victoria Street and “a chaotic scene” with numerous juveniles, where they found the 11-year-old lying at the top of the stairs inside the building, according to the criminal complaint filed against Lloyd.

Several juveniles said a girl picked up a firearm and said, “I won’t shoot him” before shooting the boy in the head and running away.

Police determined the 13-year-old girl lives on Charles Avenue and arrested her in the 100 block of Charles Avenue. As police were taking her into custody, she said, “I accidently shot somebody” and “I didn’t know the gun was loaded,” the complaint said. Police arrested her on suspicion of assault.

St. Paul police presented an investigation involving the teen to the county attorney’s office for review. Because of her age, the county attorney’s office said they couldn’t release information about whether she is charged.

Generally, information about juveniles is public if they are 16 and older and charged with a felony, or if they are younger and certified to stand trial as an adult.

Kids played with same guns previously

The criminal complaint against Lloyd gave the following information from police and prosecutors:

Lloyd said he lives at the apartment alone. Two of his children, who don’t reside with him but visit frequently, and a group of five other children ranging from 10 to 13 years old arrived about 8:20 p.m. Friday to the apartment.

Lloyd left about 8:50 p.m. to go to a store. His son and niece went into Lloyd’s bedroom and retrieved firearms, with his son grabbing a 9mm handgun and his niece a .357 revolver. They started waving the guns around.

The 13-year-old told police she last played with the firearms the previous weekend and she assumed they were unloaded as they usually were. She said she didn’t know how to open the revolver to check if it was loaded.

The gun went off and the 11-year-old was shot. He fell down in the bedroom, and the other children carried him to the kitchen to give him some water and then tried walking him outside the apartment, which is where he collapsed and police arrived.

“The firearms are kept in a higher up unlocked drawer in a closet that the juveniles can easily reach,” the complaint said.

Two children said they’d played with the guns a dozen times the last year, generally when Lloyd wasn’t around, and they were usually unloaded.

Lloyd, who returned to his building when he saw police in the area, reported to police he previously saw the children playing with the firearms and told them to put them back.

He said he has two firearms, which he kept “in a cabinet high up.” He said he usually took the bullets out of them. He also said his children and the 13-year-old had probably seen him handling the firearms. He said he didn’t use the guns and only kept them for protection.

Police found the revolver under the cushions of a couch in the living room. The 9mm was loaded and the safety was on.

Lloyd is not eligible to possess firearms because he has a conviction for third-degree drug sale, stemming from a 2010 case, which state law defines as a crime of violence.

Victim’s friend having nightmares since shooting

Comodore said she didn’t know Lloyd had guns at his apartment. “I don’t tolerate guns, I don’t like guns,” she said Monday.

The injured boy is a friend of her 12-year-old son and her son was standing right next to him when he was shot, Comodore said.

Her son has been having nightmares since his friend was hurt, telling his mother that his friend is saying, “Help me, help me!” in his bad dreams.

Lloyd is jailed and is due to make his first court appearance in the case Tuesday. An attorney wasn’t listed for him in the court file as of Monday afternoon.

The goal of the Ramsey County Gun Safety Initiative is “to expand awareness of the critical need to lock and secure firearms and provide free gun locks to Ramsey County residents through libraries and community centers,” Choi said in a Monday statement, urging gun owners to go to the program’s website for information “and take steps to ensure responsible gun ownership so we can prevent future tragedies in our community.”

400+ similar cases across country last year

Everytown for Gun Safety has been tracking unintentional shootings by children since 2015 because there wasn’t a centralized database of such cases, said Sarah Burd-Sharps, Everytown’s senior director of research. Last year, for the first time since Everytown began its tracking, they saw more than 400 incidents across the U.S.

“Nearly every day in this country, a child under 18 gets their hands on a loaded firearm and shoots themselves or someone else and I think many Americans don’t realize this risk and that this is happening,” Burd-Sharps said.

Firearm injuries are the leading cause of death for children and teens in the U.S. In half of unintentional shootings by children, they shoot themselves and in more than 90 percent of the remaining cases, the victim is another child, according to Everytown for Gun Safety.

Broadly, solutions lie in secure gun storage by gun owners, public education and laws that hold people accountable for safe gun storage, Burd-Sharps said.

Chief Henry said in Monday’s statement that while criminal charges in Friday’s shooting are important, “they don’t undo the damage.”

“This should never have happened, period,” he said. “We must take ownership of our actions and inactions if we are to have any chance to prevent the next tragedy.”

Bills introduced at the Minnesota Legislature this session would expand current law to require people to either store a firearm unloaded and equipped with a locking device, or otherwise in a locked firearm storage unit.

Related Articles