4-Year-Old Girl Accidentally Shot, Killed by 2-Year-Old Brother at Pennsylvania Gas Station

A four-year-old girl is dead after being shot by her younger brother in Chester, Pennsylvania.

The shooting, per a regional report from 6 ABC, took place while the siblings—a four-year-old girl and her two-year-old brother—were inside a parked car alone at a gas station. 

In a statement shared Tuesday, the City of Chester Police Department said that officers had first been notified of a shooting having occurred at the Eagle Save Mart gas station. The victim, later determined to be a four-year-old girl, was “immediately” taken to a nearby hospital and ultimately pronounced as deceased.

“Everybody in the community of Chester and Delaware County, myself included, all of us are just heartbroken to think of what happened to this poor child,” Delaware County District Attorney, Jack Stollsteimer, later told reporters during a press conference.

As noted in other reports, the shooting was apparently an accident. The exact circumstances, however, are still to be determined.

“Why was a gun available? Those kinds of questions still need to be answered,” Stollsteimer said Tuesday.

Complex has reached out to the Delaware County District Attorney’s office, as well as to the City of Chester Police Department, for additional comment.

Also unclear in initial reports on the shooting were the type of firearm that was discharged, as well as how the children were able to be in possession of it. The gun in question, however, has been said by police to have been legally owned. At the time of this writing, no charges had been announced in connection with the shooting.