Police: Father Barricades 7-Year-Old Girl Inside Home, Shoots Her and Himself

Police car. (Shutterstock)

A Kansas girl died after her father allegedly shot her before he turned the gun on himself.

Zachary Castorena, of Parsons, is also suspected of shooting another person, according to police.

Police in Parsons responded at around 10:45 p.m. on Sept. 29, after reports of shots fired around 1700 Chess Avenue, local ABC affiliate KAKE-TV reported. Police found a man with two shots to the face and in critical condition.

Police were able to identify Castorena as the suspect, and dispatch got a call from him moments after the shooting, according to the report. He was threatening to kill himself and his 7-year-old daughter.

Zachary Castorena, of Parsons, was identified in the case as the shooter (Facebook / selfie)

The report said he barricaded himself in a home in the 3100 block of Corning Ave. Police attempted to negotiate with him and set up a perimeter around the house.

Later, officers entered the home and found he had shot the girl and himself, KAKE reported.

Police in Parsons responded at around 10:45 p.m. on Sept. 29 after reports of shots fired around 1700 Chess Avenue, local ABC affiliate KAKE-TV reported. Police found a man with two shots to the face. (Google Maps)

According to WIBW, the girl was rushed to the hospital before she was pronounced dead. Castorena was pronounced dead at the scene.

The motive in the case is not clear.

Other details about the incident were not provided.

Labette Mental Health and Police Chaplain Steve Schultze responded to give support in the case, KOAM News reported.

Suicide Hotlines

If you are in an emergency in the United States or Canada, please call 911. You can phone the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 1 800 273 8255. Youth can call the Kids Help Phone on 1800 668 6868.

In the United Kingdom, people can call Samaritans at 116 123, Papyrus at 0800 068 41 41, or Childline at 0800 1111.

In Australia, the suicide prevention telephone hotline at Lifeline is 13 11 14. You can also visit the Lifeline website at lifeline.org.au. Youth can contact the Kids Helpline by phoning 1800 551 800 or visiting headspace.org.au/yarn-safe

If you are in an emergency in India, call Befrienders India – National Association at [phone].

Facts About Crime in the United States

Violent crime in the United States has fallen sharply over the past 25 years, according to both the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) and the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) (pdf).

The rate of violent crimes fell by 49 percent between 1993 and 2017, according to the FBI’s UCR, which only reflects crimes reported to the police.

The violent crime rate dropped by 74 percent between 1993 and 2017, according to the BJS’s NCVS, which takes into account both crimes that have been reported to the police and those that have not.

The FBI recently released preliminary data for 2018. According to the Preliminary Semiannual Uniform Crime Report, January to June 2018, violent crime rates in the United States dropped by 4.3 percent compared to the same six-month period in 2017.

While the overall rate of violent crime has seen a steady downward drop since its peak in the 1990s, there have been several upticks that bucked the trend. Between 2014 and 2016, the murder rate increased by more than 20 percent, to 5.4 per 100,000 residents, from 4.4, according to an Epoch Times analysis of FBI data. The last two-year period that the rate soared so quickly was between 1966 and 1968.