1-Year-Old Shot on Oakland Music-Video Set

The Daily News is reporting that a 1-year-old boy was shot in the head when gunfire broke out after a music video set in an Oakland, Calif., parking lot.

The boy, Hiram Lawrence, was in critical condition after undergoing surgery at Children’s Hospital Oakland. Police said two other people were also in critical condition. A total of seven people were injured in the attack, which occurred on Monday.

No arrests have been made, and police are still trying to determine exactly what happened, but the Daily News reports the following:  

"There was a rap music video that had been shot prior to the shooting," Officer Johnna Watson, spokeswoman for the Oakland Police Department, told The News.

She said it's not clear if the video prompted the violence, or whether the attack was random.

“We’re still trying to work those details out," she said.

Early reports said an Oakland rapper who goes by the name Kafani was at the scene. TV footage showed a van bearing his name that was riddled with bullets.

"I wasn't there," Kafani told the Daily News, explaining that his cousin Hiram Lawrence, also an aspiring artist, was the one shooting the video.

He said Lawrence was holding his baby son when the shots rang out and he attempted to shield the child.

"The bullet went through his hand and hit my baby cousin," Kafani, 26, said.

"We don't have any idea why it happened. It was just like random. They don't have no reason to have anybody shooting at them," Kafani, who declined to give a last name, said.

The family on Wednesday spoke out against violence in an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle.

"They didn't get a man. They didn't get a teenager," said the boy's mother, Brittany Huston. "They got a toddler, a 1-year-old. He hasn't even been here long enough. He doesn't even know what's going on. He shouldn't have to go through this."

Read more at the Daily News and the San Francisco Chronicle.

Like The Root on Facebook. Follow us on Twitter.  

 

Tweet