A 3-year-old boy was killed and his 4-year-old sister was injured after nearly 150 shots were fired into a North Carolina home, authorities said Wednesday.
Shortly before midnight Tuesday, multiple shooters opened fire in the 2400 block of Richard Rozzell Drive, according to the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department. Dozens of rounds hit Asiah Figueroa's home as he slept.
When officers arrived at the residence, they found the child with a gunshot wound and took him to the hospital where he later died.
Figueroa's 4-year-old sister was grazed by the gunfire and is expected to survive, police said.
“I don't know why this happened and I don’t know why this is going on, why the world can't get together and just love one another,” Susie Whitley, Figueroa's great-grandmother, told NBC affiliate WCNC of Charlotte. "He was only three, hadn't lived that long a life, and he was just taken away."
Authorities have not arrested any suspects or located any of the vehicles that were captured on two security cameras from neighboring homes.
However, investigators said they believe the suspected shooters could be teenage students connected to high schools in the area. It was not clear Thursday how authorities reached that conclusion.
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools officials, who did not immediately respond to an NBC News request for comment Thursday, told WCNC that the district was working on intervention programs.
"Recent acts of violence involving and directed toward students assigned to attend Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools indicate a significant problem in our community," the school said in a statement. "These horrific acts are another terrible reminder of how disruptions in lives have caused pain for many families here, including for many CMS students. Violence resulting in death is a result of that pain."
Police Chief Johnny Jennings asked those who were involved in the shooting to step forward.
"I want to speak directly to the suspects right now," Jennings said during a Wednesday news conference. "How can you wake up this morning knowing that your actions last night took the life of a 3-year-old?"
"It just makes no sense that you can have such disregard for human life and not hold yourselves accountable for that," he said.
