A 12-year-old girl in Oklahoma state of the United States of America was arrested for allegedly stabbing her younger brother, a nine-year-old boy, to death.
As per reports, the incident took place when the children’s parents were asleep upstairs. The girl woke them up shortly before midnight on Thursday last week and told them that she had stabbed her brother.
The girl is held in custody at the Family Centre for Juvenile Justice in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The investigation is being handled by the Tulsa Police Child Unit.
The police said when they responded to the incident at the River Bank Plaza Apartments complex, the place where the family lived, they found firefighters and paramedics “already on scene and performing CPR to the 9-year-old victim.
The boy was reportedly rushed to the hospital and taken into surgery, but he ultimately succumbed to his injuries shortly after 2:30 am.
The death of the nine-year-old boy marks the second homicide of 2023 in the city of Tulsa, as per the Tulsa Police Department Child Crisis Unit. The city witnessed 68 homicides in 2022.
The Tulsa Police Department Chief Wendell Franklin reacted to the child’s death, asserting that homicides in the city were a clear sign of a societal problem. “All homicides are tragic, but the 2nd homicide of 2023 in Tulsa shows a definitive societal problem. The question is, how does society address a child killing another child?” he tweeted on Friday.
While the motive of the act has not yet been established, the police said the court will be responsible for ascertaining the intent.
“Obviously we did some interviews, but interviews with a 12-year-old are very preliminary,” said Richard Meulenberg, a police officer from the Tulsa Police Department. “This, unfortunately, has no easy end or easy path, this is going to be a long, convoluted process that’s going to be extremely taxing on everyone involved in this.”
