A ten-year-old in Mexico shot and killed another eleven-year-old because he beat him at video games. The attacker shot the victim with a pistol that he picked up at the family home in a miserable area of the state of Veracruz (southeast). The two children had played on a video console rented from a local business in the town of La Perla.
“I only ask for one thing, that they help me so that justice is done, because my son died through the fault of the parents of this child who killed my child”, declared the mother of the victim at the funeral on Tuesday, quoted by the daily Reforma. The perpetrator’s parents are responsible because they left “a gun lying on the table”, according to the mother, whose name is Leticia. The assailant and his family fled.
It is “sad” that a child can have access to a weapon, commented the governor of the state of Veracruz, Cuitlahuac Garcia, considering that there were “without doubt responsibilities” to be established. The 9mm caliber Taurus pistol had been legally purchased by the child’s mother.
Experts quoted by Mexican media believe that the petty aggressor is also a victim of violence in parts of a country that recorded 30,968 homicides in 2022 (down 7.1% in one year).