Teen In Critical Condition After Shooting At Billerica Home
BILLERICA (CBS) - A teen suffered a life threatening injury after a shooting at a Billerica home Friday morning.
"This appears to have been an incident which occurred among a group of juvenile friends using BB guns and a pellet gun," Deputy Police Chief Roy Frost said.
In a wooded front yard draped with crime scene ribbon, investigators huddled around some sort of pellet rifle Friday afternoon.
Neighbors tried to carry on. "You never expect something like that to happen close to home," a neighbor said.
It was a late morning 911 call that summoned Billerica police to a yellow house on Andover Road, where scanner traffic indicated a teenager had been shot in the abdomen.
"The victim sustained a life threatening injury and is in critical condition at Lahey Hospital and Medical Center in Burlington," Frost said Friday evening. "Our thoughts are with the victim and his family in hopes he will have a full recovery."
Some neighbors who saw the victim being wheeled into an ambulance say paramedics appeared to be doing CPR.
"In shock, obviously," a neighbor said. "That doesn't happen."
For the next several hours police sealed off the street, as detectives focused on the front yard and a side porch, giving zero details on what some sources were describing as an accidental shooting.
"The public is not in danger. And it was not a random act," Frost said at the scene.
But several family friends who stopped by say the victim is a fun loving 17-year-old, who just finished junior year at Shawsheen Valley Tech.
"Happy guy, he just jokes around a lot," a friend said. "You know, upbeat."
Friends say he lived in the home with two brothers, one older and one younger—all a bit on the mischievous side.
"I know one of them had a BB gun, the little brother," another friend said. "But I'm not really sure if that's what happened."
Some neighbors say that younger brother was at the home when the accident happened Friday morning.
WBZ has been given the victim's name and picture by some of his friends, but will not make either public until police or family confirm them.
