Police are investigating the circumstances of a 14-year-old shot in St. Paul, whose family says he was shot in the head and will not survive.
Officers responded to a 911 call about 9:30 p.m. Friday, during which a caller reported a juvenile shot himself in a Dayton’s Bluff residence, said Sgt. Toy Vixayvong, a St. Paul police spokesman.
Police gave the boy first aid in the 300 block of Bates Avenue and called for St. Paul Fire Department medics. Medics took the boy to the hospital and he’s been on life support.
Jerron Chapman’s mother “made the decision to give the gift of life to save other people” and he is scheduled to become an organ donor on Tuesday, said family friend Arial Rodriguez, speaking from the hospital on Monday night with Chapman’s mother, Kitrinna Simonson, by her side.
Chapman is a freshman at Johnson Senior High School. He is “an amazing, smart, athletic, kind” young man, Rodriguez said. “He was the apple of his mama’s eye.”
He was at the home of a relative on his father’s side when the shooting happened Friday, according to Rodriguez.
Police are looking into how the shooting happened and where the gun came from. They’ve interviewed friends of the teen who were at the residence of the time of the shooting, Vixayvong said.
“We don’t know where they got the gun, who gave them this gun and … now my friend is suffering because she lost her perfect boy,” Rodriguez said, adding that Simonson wants the person who provided the gun to be arrested and held accountable.
A GoFundMe for the family started by Jamie Addison, a cousin of Simonson’s, was originally a medical fundraiser “because we had hope for the best outcomes possible, but there were just a lot of unknowns with something so severe,” Addison said. When they learned Chapman had no brain activity, the fundraiser was updated to be for funeral costs.
