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Police in South Carolina’s capital city are investigating how a gun went off inside a parked car outside of a children’s consignment store on Christmas Eve – killing a four-year-old child.
Jah’el E. Walker of Columbia, S.C. was “gravely wounded” in the shooting and transported to a nearby hospital. Efforts to save him were unsuccessful and he was pronounced dead shortly thereafter.
The Columbia Police Department (CPD) offered a “terribly sad update” on Christmas morning (December 25, 2024) – informing the public that Walker “passed away at a local hospital after being shot inside a vehicle.”
Investigators are working “to determine how the child was fatally injured,” according to the release, and vowed to release “additional information… when possible.” CPD investigators are joined in their inquiries by agents of the S.C. State Law Enforcement Division (SLED) and the office of Lexington County coroner Margaret Fisher.
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The shooting took place shortly before 2:45 p.m. EST on Tuesday (December 24, 2024) outside of the Rainbow apparel store located in the 200 block of Harbison Boulevard. This address is at the center of a major shopping and dining district – one located just a stone’s throw away from a large mall where a recent mass shooting occurred.
As noted in our previous coverage, initial reports point to the incident being linked to an unattended firearm.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR…
Will Folks is the founding editor of the news outlet you are currently reading. Prior to founding FITSNews, he served as press secretary to the governor of South Carolina. He lives in the Midlands region of the state with his wife and eight children.
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6 comments
Word is the mother is devistated, her EBT and WIC payments are expected to decrease by 25% which is going to cut into her weave and nail budget.
Sounds like carelessness on someone’s part by leaving a loaded gun where unsupervised children in a car could easily find and have access to it.
While it may not have made any difference, I wonder if the car had a lockable glove compartment. For some reason, in recent years, automobile manufacturers have stopped putting locks on vehicle glove boxes? Why? Had the gun been left in a locked glove box, no doubt this tragedy could have been prevented. If the box was not lockable because the manufacturer no longer puts locks on glove boxes, that was a safety option denied to the driver, by the manufacturer and its design engineers.
Lord yes! This is the fault of the auto manufacturer, maybe there is a million dollar settlement coming. This is a sad, sad story!
Some improvements in safety and convenience come about as the result of large and sometimes frivolous lawsuits. I would love to see one launched against auto manufacturers and design engineers for leaving office this useful and important feature.
In the early 1980’s, my Dodge Omni was parked in a fenced in parking lot where I worked a third-shift manufacturing job. Going to my car the next morning, I found my glove box ajar. It was still locked, but tool marks indicated that someone had tried forcing it open with a large screwdriver or similar item. I religiously locked my car each time on getting out of it at home or work. My guess is that someone used a slim jim or coat hanger to get into the car, but no marks were visible. I think something may have spooked the perp, like an employee stepping out on the loading dock to smoke a cigarette or similar, otherwise they would have finished prying open the glove box and then had a .357 revolver, a .25 semi-auto pistol, and a hand-held police scanner. That little bit of extra protection from the glove box made a lot of difference for me.
Investigators are working “to determine how the child was fatally injured”…wouldn’t that answer be, “He was shot”?
Do they actually mean, “What were the circumstances surrounding the child being shot?”
This is a sad situation for sure. Obviously the parents or whomever left a loaded gun accessible to children in a vehicle either made a grave error or were intentionally negligent. The incident occurred directly in front of Once Upon a Child not Rainbow as stated in the article. Pictures confirming the location were posted by Columbia PD. Someone has to be accountable in the death of this child.