MIDLOTHIAN, Va. (WTVR) – A seven-year-old boy shot in the head by a stray bullet Thursday night has died, Chesterfield, Virginia police said.
Police said Brendon Mackey, 7, was walking with his father in the parking lot of the Boathouse Restaurant in Midlothian about 9 p.m. Thursday when he was shot. The father and son were there to watch some nearby fireworks.
“A large crowd had been gathering over by the reservoir to watch fireworks and a young boy, seven years old, was walking through the parking lot with his dad. He was a few step behind his dad and he [the boy] fell to the ground,” Chesterfield Police Capt. Brad Badgerow said. “Initially they thought he was just passed out. They saw some blood. They thought he may have hit his head.”
But when the child was taken to the hospital, doctors made a startling discovery.
“When medical personnel were treating him, they found what they believe to be a bullet wound in the top of his head,” Badgerow said.
Police said it is unlikely that the shot was intentionally fired at the boy, and that the bullet likely came from a gun fired off the premises.
Read more from WTVR, our sister station in Richmond, Virginia.
