Two men are in now police custody on murder charges following the Mississippi drive-by shooting death of 9-month-old Rashan Riley, CBS News reports. Assistant Police Chief George Douglas stated that around 1:40 p.m. on Tuesday, several shots were fired from a vehicle that was driving down the 900 block of Adams Street in Grenada.
Several bullets pierced through the living room of a home that sat on the corner of Adams Street and Jefferson Street where baby Rashan resided. Authorities say the infant was sitting on the couch during the time of the Grenada drive-by shooting and was struck in the head.
Emergency medical services responded to the scene and transported baby Rashan via air ambulance to the University of Mississippi Medical Center-Grenada where he later died from his injuries.
It was reported that a number of people were inside of the home, including children, when the baby was killed in the drive-by shooting.
Douglas stated that they do not feel as though the house was targeted. It is believed that the Granada shooting commenced after the baby’s neighbor got into a confrontation with the occupants of the vehicle and it turned into a gun fight.
After a preliminary investigation, officers stated that no one in the home where baby Rashan was shot was involved in the drive-by shooting, and no one else was injured.
Within hours of the fatal Grenada shooting, police officials stopped a vehicle near a subdivision on Country Club Road that matched the description of the car seen near the shooting on Adams Street.
The two men in the vehicle, identified as 18-year-old Shaquille Chamberlain and 20-year-old John Brown, were taken into custody.
The baby’s death stunned the Grenada community. Relatives say that baby Rashan was a lovable and good baby who was “funny, like to play around,” and he will truly be missed.
“This is a terrible loss. A loss of life so young. This is an infant,” said Douglas. “Inside a neighborhood where bullets are flying all over the place and you never know who is going to be struck by a bullet, so we want our residents to understand that we do not condone any type of gun violence. We are saddened by this.”
The baby’s remains were taken to the state crime lab in Jackson, Mississippi, for an autopsy to determine the exact cause of death.
Chamberlain and Brown were charged with the drive-by shooting death of 9-month-old Rashan Riley. The pair has been booked into the Grenada County Jail with no bond.
An investigation into the Grenada shooting is ongoing.
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