16-year-old boy fatally shot in West Little River is fourth child shot in a week

A 16-year-old boy was fatally shot in the West Little River neighborhood Friday night, Miami-Dade police said. He was the fourth child shot in Miami-Dade County in a week.

The teen was found shot to death on the 8000 block of Northwest 14th Avenue just after 7:40 p.m. Police don’t know how many times he was hit, said Miami-Dade police spokesman Argemis Colome.

“There’s a lot of casings at the scene,” he said, referring to the pieces of metal left behind after a bullet is fired from a gun.

Police have no information on a shooter and have not released details on the circumstances surrounding the shooting. Colome said the teen boy was not a Miami-Dade resident.

“Devastating news on the first night of Winter Break. Our community must become safer for children and teens,” tweeted Alberto Carvalho, superintendent of Miami-Dade County Public Schools. “Violence against young people cannot be tolerated. We are better than this.”

The week of violence started Dec 15, when 2-year-old Carnell Williams-Thomas was shot and killed while riding his new scooter in the courtyard of his family’s housing complex in Goulds. Two hours later, a 17-year-old boy was fatally shot at a mobile home park in Northwest Miami-Dade.

Thursday, a 16-year-old boy was shot multiple times while he was waiting in the passenger seat of a car at a Citgo service station on Northwest 103rd Street and 12th Avenue. He’s the only child who survived his gunshot wounds this week.

This story was originally published December 22, 2017 at 10:20 PM with the headline "16-year-old boy fatally shot in West Little River is fourth child shot in a week."