10-Year-Old California Boy Held on Suspicion of Shooting Another Child With His Father’s Gun

A Sacramento County Sheriff's Department officer looks on near a crime scene in Sacramento, Calif., on Feb. 28, 2022. (Andri Tambunan/AFP via Getty Images)

SACRAMENTO, Calif.—A 10-year-old Northern California boy has been arrested on suspicion of shooting to death another child with his father’s gun, authorities said.

Sacramento County sheriff’s deputies answered a shooting report at around 4:30 p.m. Saturday afternoon in Foothill Farms, an unincorporated Sacramento suburb. In a parking lot, they found a 10-year-old boy bleeding from the head and neck. Despite lifesaving measures, he was later pronounced dead at a hospital, the Sheriff’s Office said in a social media posting.

The boy was identified by coroner’s officials as Keith Frierson. He had left his apartment a short time before the shooting to ride his bicycle, a relative told KCRA-TV.

According to a Sheriff’s Office statement, another 10-year-old boy had gone out to his father’s truck to get him cigarettes and found a loaded gun. He took it and “bragged that his father had a gun,” a Sheriff’s Office statement said.

“He then proceeded to shoot the victim once and ran into a nearby apartment,” the post read.

Deputies ordered people in the building to come out. The 10-year-old was arrested on suspicion of murder and his father was arrested on suspicion of crimes including carrying a stolen, loaded firearm in a vehicle, child endangerment, and being an accessory to a crime after the fact.

Authorities allege that he also tried to hide the gun by throwing it into a nearby trash can, where deputies found it.

The man remained jailed Tuesday on $500,000 bail. He was an ex-felon who was “legally prohibited from owning or possessing a firearm,” the Sheriff’s Office said, adding that the gun had been reported stolen in 2017.

It wasn’t immediately clear whether the man had an attorney who could speak on his behalf.