Young Philadelphia shooting victim identified

Police on Sunday identified the 11-year-old West Philadelphia girl shot and killed by a younger sibling over the weekend as Jamara Stevens.

The shooting occurred Saturday morning in the 3800 block of Wallace Street after one of Stevens' three siblings found a .357-caliber handgun on top of a refrigerator and brought it upstairs, police said.

A man who visited the home on Friday night had left the gun, police said. Detectives had not yet talked to him as of Sunday morning.

The gun went off in a second-floor bedroom where Stevens was with her siblings, police said. Officers found Stevens' mother cradling her when they arrived.

Stevens was pronounced dead at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia after being rushed in the back of a squad car with a gunshot wound to her shoulder.

A police spokeswoman said Sunday that no criminal charges had been filed.

– Michael Boren