11-year-old boy shot in East Austin, police investigating
AUSTIN, Texas - Austin police are investigating after an 11-year-old boy was shot in the shoulder Tuesday night.
Police said it happened on the 1300 block of East 3rd Street. The call came in at 11:32 p.m.
The child's sister, who didn't want to be identified for safety reasons, says he's still in the hospital and went through surgery. He is expected to make a full recovery.
"All you hear is shooting, and he screams, ‘I got shot,’ and I woke up, and I'm not looking towards his way, because I'm thinking something's going on, like shooting or exploding going on," she said.
Four people were in the home, and the sister says 5 to 10 bullets were fired at the house. Everyone dropped to the ground. Her brother was standing by the window.
"He said he got shot. I didn't believe it. I thought it was the microwave that exploded," she said.
Neighbor Laura Morgan heard the gunshots too.
"I heard them screaming, and the little boy came running out of the house, his shoulder was blown out," she said.
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"Once we take his shirt off, we see he had a big bullet wound on his shoulder, and it was like really deep and bad," the sister said.
Police have not released any information about a suspect, vehicle, or type of weapon used. They call it an isolated incident.
"We heard our neighbors saw a white sedan pass by, or like an old type Tahoe or something, like a 2011 type Tahoe," the sister said. "My brother was hit with an AR."
She says her message to the suspect would be, "you thought what you did was okay, but let's see how you react when you're in jail in a cell and not being able to do anything, not in control of anything at all anymore."
The incident left their neighbor shaken up, too.
"Seeing that little boy with a gunshot wound made me think of all the kids in Uvalde," Morgan said. "I couldn't sleep all last night. I still haven't slept because all I kept seeing was that gunshot wound in his shoulder and just picturing all those kids."
"I was really, really, really scared and really infuriated with whoever did this, and I was just so confused at the time wondering why, who did this, why would they do this to us?" the sister said.
The victim's sister says nothing like this has ever happened in the neighborhood, and they plan to move as soon as possible.