A child was seriously wounded by an accidental shooting while in her San Francisco home, according to a city supervisor.
Contrary to initial claims from the girl’s father — who told news outlets that a stray bullet entered the house and struck his child Friday — it appears she was shot from inside the home, Supervisor Ahsha Safaí told The Standard.
“All signs point to an accidental shooting,” Safaí said by phone Wednesday. “The young girl was home with the siblings and the siblings’ friends. There was a loaded gun in the house. If there was any evidence of it coming from outside the home, there would be evidence of a drive-by shooting.”
He said there’s no video evidence suggesting the bullet was fired from outdoors.
Safaí declined to say how he learned about the loaded gun in the house or who might have fired it but said he wanted to eliminate worries in the Crocker-Amazon neighborhood about street violence.
“I felt compelled to set the record straight because it gave people the impression that there was a drive-by shooting,” Safaí said.
NBC Bay Area and ABC7 reported that the father believed the girl was shot by a random bullet from outside the house while the family prepared dinner. The outlets reported that the girl is 8 years old, but police said the child is 11 years old.
The San Francisco Police Department said officers responded at 5:24 p.m. Friday to a shooting at a home on Chicago Way, an apartment-lined street just south of McLaren Park.
When cops arrived, they found a child with life-threatening injuries and rendered aid before medics rushed her to a hospital, according to police.
The police department has not answered The Standard’s questions about the source of the gunfire. However, police told the SF Chronicle that they “never mentioned a stray bullet.”
Chief Bill Scott told police commissioners during their meeting Wednesday night that the investigation is ongoing, saying that “there’s not a whole lot of information as far as who fired that shot.”
The girl is in stable condition and expected to recover, Safaí said.
“She’s obviously going to be traumatized by this,” he said.
The SFPD previously said it’s investigating the shooting and urged anyone with information about the case to call a tip line at (415) 575-4444 or text a message starting with “SFPD” to TIP411.