A 5-year-old boy was fatally shot Thursday night inside a home in Calumet City, police said.
At 9 p.m., police responded to a call of a child shot in the 200 block of Paxton Avenue and found a 5-year-old boy with a gunshot wound and provided aid, police said in a news release.
The boy was taken to a trauma center where he was pronounced dead, police said.
Calumet City detectives are investigating the shooting, but a preliminary investigation found the gun was discharged within the home, police said.
“Regardless of the circumstances concerning this tragic death, our hearts are broken as this family must now deal with the loss of this young child,” Calumet City Mayor Thaddeus Jones said in the news release. “I would like to express my deepest condolences to the family. Earth has no sorrow that heaven cannot heal,”