8-year-old Boy Shoots 7-year-old Girl

An 8-year-old boy shoots a 7-year old girl at the For Kids We Care center in Germantown, MD in Montgomery county. The boy was playing with the gun, which he brought in his backpack when it went off. The girl was shot in in the arm around 7 a.m. She was flown to the Children's Hospital in DC. There six other children in the day care at the time of the accident; no one else was hurt.

John Linwood Hall Sr., a maintenance worker at NIH, was charged with leaving a firearm in a location accessible by an unsupervised minor, contributing to the delinquency of a minor, and possession of a firearm by a felon; he has criminal record dating to the 1960s. There were several weapons that were accessible to the boy. The boy knowingly brought the gun to the day care and charges will be filed against him.

The boy had been suspended previously for bring a weapon to school. Initially, the incident was reported as an accident, but the Washington Post reports that the boy threatened the girl and then fired the gun. The boy has made threatening statements in the past, including, "What the [expletive] can they do to a kid, anyway? I'll shoot 'em," and "Phase 1: Get weapons. Phase 2: Kill the hillbilly."