A 10-year-old girl was hit with a stray bullet during a shooting in Baltimore on Saturday afternoon (Feb. 27). According to The Baltimore Sun, fourth-grader Kaelin Washington suffered a punctured lung and a fractured rib from the bullet, but is expected to survive.
“She’s in pain, and I just wish I could take her pain,” her mother Jasmine Ramsey said on Monday (March 1) at the Johns Hopkins Children’s Center. “I’m angry. I’m angry and I’m hurting.”
Kaelin was walking to the store to buy Cheetos when gunfire rang out.
“Walking to the store was normal. I hold her close. I don’t let her do too much. I always keep an eye on her,” Ramsey said.
WBALTV reports that the shooting occurred between two groups of men on North Fulton Street who got into an argument. Kaelin was nearly four blocks away from the shooting, but a stray bullet was sent down the street. According to police, two men were found wounded.
After being shot in the chest, Kaelin walked to her godmother’s house, who called 911. Ramsey and her boyfriend were on their way to the grocery store when they received the horrifying news.
“I panicked. I was screaming. I kept telling my boyfriend, ‘Get me to her!’” she recalled.
By Monday, Kaelin was reportedly able to sit upright in her chair and doctors expect her to make a full recovery. However, Ramsey said, the emotional trauma from the shooting still remains.
“She said, ‘Mommy, why would they shoot me?’” Ramsey told reporters. “They messed my baby up for life.”
According to the Sun, a 12-year-old boy was also wounded on Monday after being shot in the arm. In 2018, a 7-year-old was fatally shot while riding in the backseat of a car.
“I don’t care what your silly, stupid little beef is. That 10-year-old baby had nothing to do with your beef,” Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott said of Kaelin’s shooting. “… We have to be better in our community. We have to resolve our conflicts in different ways and we have to understand that the [lives] of our young people are precious and we cannot put them in danger over something stupid.”
So far, police haven’t announced any arrests in the incident.