DOUGLAS, GA (WALB) -
Douglas police are investigating the shooting death of a toddler. Police say two year old Jeremiah McCrae was shot in the head while playing with a gun. The accidental death has left neighbors with a lot of unanswered questions.
Neighbors are shocked by the accidental shooting death of two year old Jeremiah McCrae.
"A bunch of kids start coming out of the house and they were crying and screaming, and I was like, 'What happened,' and then a lady comes out, I am believe it now to be his mom, she was on the phone and she was hollering and screaming, he shot himself, or he got shot or something," says Shayla Thompson\Neighbor.
Shayla Thompson lives next door to the McCrae's and was home at the time of the shooting. "He was on the stretcher and you could see some red or some blood right here, and he had the mask on and I saw them put him in there."
Police say Jeremiah McCrae was in the upstairs hallway of his home at 517 E. Bryan St. when his 6 year old brother saw him playing with the 9 millimeter gun.
"Appears that they were playing with the firearm, and that it accidentally discharged, the details of who had it and how this occurred are still kind of sketchy," says Sgt. Robert Sprinkle\Douglas Police.
He says the gun apparently went off when the 6 year old was trying to get it out of his brother's hands.
"He was shot on the left side of his forehead," says Sprinkle.
His mother was the only adult home and she was downstairs at the time the time of the shooting. The child died in an ambulance on the way to Savannah Memorial Medical Center.
"If there is a gun in the house, one, why have it in their reach, and two, why is it loaded, and three, why are you not watching your kids," says Thompson.
The death has left neighbors with a lot of unanswered questions and an unsettling feeling.
Police are not yet sure who the gun is registered to. Investigators will decide if any criminal charges will be made in this case when the investigation is finished.
Copyright 2012 WALB. All rights reserved.
All content © Copyright 2000 - 2013 Worldnow and WALB, a Raycom Media Station. 
