Police in Little Rock, Arkansas, are offering a reward of $20,000 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of a man who shot and killed a 3-year-old boy during a road-rage attack on Saturday.
The boy was with his grandmother, who was driving the vehicle. They were stopped at a stop sign when a driver behind them apparently got angry and walked up and opened fire, hitting the child. The grandmother was unharmed.
Little Rock Police told ABC News of the reward on Sunday afternoon.
“Tonight’s homicide was a road rage incident,” police wrote in a tweet before adding that “the grandma and three-year-old victim are innocent and have no relationship [with] the suspect.”
The suspect was described as a tall black male who was driving a black Chevy Impala.
Police arrived at the shopping center and found the boy in the car outside a JCPenney department store. The boy was taken to a hospital, where he died shortly after, becoming the second young child shot dead in a road rage incident in the city in the last few weeks, AP reported.
Police Lt. Steven McClanahan said investigators believe the boy and his grandmother “were completely innocent” and have no relationship with Saturday’s shooter, who was being sought. He said the grandmother was simply “driving the car and was taking her grandson shopping when the incident occurred.”
Police said they were looking for an older black Chevrolet Impala. Police did not release a detailed description of the man who was driving it.
Last month, a 2-year-old girl was killed when a car drove by and someone fired into the vehicle she was in; the shooter in that case also hasn’t been captured.
Police Chief Kenton Buckner said the road rage killings were frustrating for the police department and the community, especially because the young victims were “very innocent” and “can do very little to protect themselves.”
“We cannot have a community ... where the least protected among us, being infants, who are dying (in) these senseless crimes in our city,” Buckner said.
He said he didn’t know if the children’s shootings were related.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
