A 14-year-old girl was fatally shot Thursday afternoon in what police believe was an accidental shooting inside her home, leaving family members and neighbors shaken.<\/p>\n
“It was so very sad that I had to see this happen to the special little girl,” a neighbor said.<\/p>\n
Upper Darby police said four juveniles were alone in the house when they found a handgun. According to investigators, the teens were playing with the weapon in a bedroom when it discharged, striking the girl in the head.<\/p>\n
“My heart goes out to the family and the child,” neighbor Aspara Agyeman said.<\/p>\n
Police Superintendent Timothy Bernhardt said investigators are interviewing the juveniles who were present.<\/p>\n
“We are speaking with those juveniles currently. We are trying to determine exactly what happened,” he said.<\/p>\n
A neighbor told police he heard a single gunshot from the home on the 100 block of Springton Road and immediately called 911.<\/p>\n
“It was a neighbor to me, so I wanted to make sure everything was alright,” he said.<\/p>\n
Body camera audio captured officers being told, “You’re going to have to make entry. There may be a female shot inside.”<\/p>\n
Police arrived around 1:40 p.m. and rushed the middle school student to the hospital. She was later pronounced dead.<\/p>\n
“We hate to see a young person who had their whole life ahead of them that now their life is gone,” Agyeman said.<\/p>\n
Bernhardt urged families to secure firearms to prevent similar tragedies.<\/p>\n
“I wish kids would realize the danger of a firearm, and here is an incident no one can take back. You don’t get a redo. Someone lost their life, and three other juveniles are going to have to live with this,” he said.<\/p>\n
He added that the department provides free gun locks and safes to township residents who need one.<\/p>\n
Police are still working to determine who owns the gun and who was holding it when it fired. No charges have been filed.<\/p>\n
The school district said counselors will be available on Friday for students at Beverly Hills Middle School.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A 14-year-old girl was fatally shot Thursday afternoon in what police believe was an accidental shooting inside her…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":192981,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[22352,85932,18958,746,85931,147,149,148,150],"class_list":["post-192980","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-upper-darby","tag-accidental-shooting","tag-aspara-agyeman","tag-family-members","tag-juveniles","tag-police-superintendent-timothy-bernhardt","tag-upper-darby","tag-upper-darby-headlines","tag-upper-darby-news","tag-upper-darby-township"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192980","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=192980"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192980\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/192981"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=192980"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=192980"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=192980"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}