{"id":286814,"date":"2026-05-27T23:15:58","date_gmt":"2026-05-27T23:15:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/286814\/"},"modified":"2026-05-27T23:15:58","modified_gmt":"2026-05-27T23:15:58","slug":"family-remembers-14-year-old-killed-in-st-pete-shooting-as-police-arrest-3-teens-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/286814\/","title":{"rendered":"Family remembers 14-year-old killed in St. Pete shooting as police arrest 3 teens"},"content":{"rendered":"

The family of 14-year-old Gaige Santos-Brown<\/a> is grieving the loss of a son and brother after a deadly shooting in St. Petersburg and says they hope his death brings attention to the impact of teen gun violence.<\/p>\n

A memorial now marks the spot where Gaige was shot and killed Friday evening.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s unimaginable,\u201d said Selna Abbot, Gaige’s sister. \u201cHe was a baby.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gaige\u2019s sisters described him as outgoing, energetic and someone people naturally gravitated toward.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was very charming, very charismatic, so full of personality, so full of energy, just someone that you wanted to be around,\u201d Abbot said.<\/p>\n

Abbey Brown said some of her favorite memories with her younger brother happened in the kitchen.<\/p>\n

\u201cMe and Gaige bonded over cooking,\u201d Brown said. \u201cHe\u2019d get me out of bed and tell me, \u2018Sis, come cook something.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

According to St. Petersburg police, the shooting happened just after 6:30 p.m. Friday. Investigators said Gaige met up with three others at Shadyside Market when some kind of argument broke out.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is all a very sad situation because no child should be anywhere near a firearm,\u201d said Ashley Limardo with the St. Pete Police Department.<\/p>\n

Police said a 16-year-old was taken into custody over the weekend and charged with felony murder. Two other suspects, a 15-year-old and a 16-year-old, were arrested Tuesday afternoon.<\/p>\n

Gaige\u2019s family said the violence has devastated not only their family, but the families of the suspects as well.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just senseless,\u201d Abbott said. \u201cIt\u2019s hard to imagine that kids can get ahold of these weapons and then use them and not completely understand exactly what they\u2019re doing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cA split-second decision is now ruining four different families\u2019 lives,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

Now, the family hopes something positive can come from the tragedy and says they want to eventually create programs that help keep teens away from violence.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to get our kids off of the street, into some sort of program, be it sports or a leadership program,\u201d Abbott said.<\/p>\n

For now, though, the family is focused on remembering Gaige.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was a sweet little boy,\u201d said his father, Rufus Brown.<\/p>\n

Brown also had a message for those responsible for his son\u2019s death: \u201cBring them to justice.\u201d<\/p>\n

The family has set up a\u00a0fundraiser to help with funeral expenses.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The family of 14-year-old Gaige Santos-Brown is grieving the loss of a son and brother after a deadly…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":286815,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[14050,120929,121539,202,204,203,199,201,200],"class_list":["post-286814","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-deadly-shooting","tag-rufus-brown","tag-selna-abbot","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286814","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=286814"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286814\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/286815"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=286814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=286814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=286814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}