United States: he thought to shoot a burglar, he kills his daughter

Yet another gun-related drama in the United States. An American, thinking he was targeting someone who broke into his lodge in a suburban Ohio, shot and killed his own daughter, according to police and local media. At around 4.30 a.m. on Wednesday, a woman called for help: Janae, her 16-year-old daughter, was seriously injured by gunshot in the garage. The father, who shot her by taking her for an intruder, is distraught, asks her how she is.

While waiting for the police to arrive, the two parents beg their daughter to stand up, tells the Columbus Dispatch, a local daily which had access to a recording of the call. But nothing helps, says the police report: transported to a hospital, she died an hour later.

“Either way, if you’re the one going to pull the trigger, it’s really important to know who your target is.”, thought it useful to specify a police official with the local channel ABC6 Columbus, the capital of the state of Ohio, in the north of the country.

“We are saddened by this tragic loss and we will make every effort to support high school students and families”, wrote the school where Janae was studying in a letter to parents quoted by the local press.

Less than two kilometers away, a shootout killed three people aged 6, 9 and 22 on December 7. The two young children attended the same school as the teenager. According to the Columbus police report, this is the 202nd homicide of 2021 in the city of about two million people.

Gun violence has increased since the start of the pandemic in the United States, where the carrying of weapons is protected by the Second Amendment to the Constitution. They have killed more than 44,000 since the start of the year, including 1,517 minors, including suicides, according to the Gun Violence Archive website.