ORLANDO, Fla. — The 10-year-old girl who last week shot and killed a woman who was fighting with her mother was arrested Tuesday on a second-degree murder charge, the Orlando Police Department announced Tuesday.
The child, whom the Orlando Sentinel isn’t naming because she is a minor, was taken to the Juvenile Justice Center in Orange County.
The Orange-Osceola State Attorney’s Office didn’t immediately respond to a request seeking comment. It was not immediately clear if the agency was involved in the decision to charge the girl.
Witnesses told police her mother, Lakrisha Isaac, and the victim, Lashun Rodgers, had been a prior dispute about social media posts when they got into a fight May 30 at the Jernigan Gardens apartment complex on Mercy Drive.
Isaac, who had been drinking, confronted Rodgers and her boyfriend before the women exchanged blows, an arrest affidavit said.
Isaac passed the child a backpack, where she found a gun and fired at Rodgers, hitting her in the head, police said. Rodgers’ boyfriend told police the child then said, “She shouldn’t have hit my momma.”
Isaac was jailed on charges of manslaughter by culpable negligence, aggravated assault, negligent storage of a firearm and child neglect. She’s currently in the Orange County Jail without bond.
The child was initially in the custody of the Department of Children and Families before she was arrested.
It’s not clear whether she’ll be tried as an adult.
Many in the community sought to intervene in the aftermath of that shooting and an unrelated killing of a teen near Pine Hills. A group of pastors last Wednesday gathered to pray for the child and called on parents to be more attentive to their children, encouraging them also to participate in summertime events in the community.
Activist Miles Mulrain of Let Your Voice Be Heard earlier said he was working with both families in the Mercy Drive shooting and called for a “community-based response to this situation.”
He didn’t respond to a message seeking comment on the announced charge.
Days before Rogers’ killing, a 2-year-old boy killed his father with an improperly stored gun at their home in east Orange County, Sheriff John Mina revealed Monday. Records in that case indicate the gun the boy found and used was also stored in a backpack.
That boy’s 28-year-old mother, Marie Ayala, is also facing manslaughter and other charges in the May 26 death of his father, Reggie Mabry, 26.
“I can’t emphasize strongly enough that our guns need to be secure and kept out of the hands and away from children at all times,” Mina said at a press conference Monday. “Gun owners that do not properly secure their firearms are just one split second away from one of these tragedies happening in their homes.”
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