Chicago boy, 6, kills brother while playing ‘cops and robbers’

Chicago: Michael Santiago needed a gun.

He was a former gang member who had snitched on his old crew and now feared for his life. So Santiago purchased a pistol on the street and kept it in the kitchen just in case.

Whether he needed to show his six-year-old son the weapon, however, is something that will likely haunt Santiago for the rest of his life.

On Saturday night, Santiago’s security scheme went horribly wrong when his six-year-old son found the loaded gun. The boy, who has not been named by police, then began playing “cops and robbers” with his younger brother, 3-year-old Eian, when the gun suddenly went off.

The bullet struck Eian in the face, killing him.

The Chicago shooting is the latest in a seemingly incessant string of American kids being killed by guns, often shot by other kids. This summer, another toddler was fatally shot by her 7-year-old brother in Washington, D.C. Earlier this month, an 11-year-old boy in Tennessee was charged with first-degree murder after shooting his 8-year-old neighbor with a shotgun after an argument over puppies.

In the most recent case, however, it is the father who had been charged with a crime. Santiago, 25, has been charged with felony child endangerment for allegedly showing his eldest son where he kept the unprotected pistol.

The family tragedy was set into motion when Santiago bought the weapon that would tear his own family apart.

Santiago was once a member of the Spanish Cobras, the second largest Latino gang on Chicago’s North Side, but he had gone straight by testifying against one of his former Cobra colleagues.

“In a videotape statement the defendant said he kept the gun for protection because he was a former gang member who snitched on a gang member in a murder trial,” prosecutor Joseph DiBella told a Cook County criminal courtroom on Sunday, according to the Chicago Tribune. Santiago bought a .32-caliber Smith & Wesson revolver from one of his Cobra connections.

But if Santiago was worried about protection, he was looking for threats in the wrong places.

“The gun was purchased off the street,” DiBella said. “It was kept loaded, and it was wrapped in pajama pants on top of the refrigerator.”

If that wasn’t insecure enough, Santiago allegedly decided to show his eldest son the deadly weapon.

“About a week prior to the shooting, he showed his older son where he kept the gun,” DiBella told the court, according to the Tribune. “[Santiago] took the gun from on top of the refrigerator, unwrapped the pajama pants and explained to the 6-year-old that the gun was only to be used by adults.”

Apparently the boy didn’t get the message.

On Saturday night at around 9 p.m., while Santiago was managing Papa Ray’s Pizza restaurant and his wife was at the grocery store, the boy climbed up to the top of the refrigerator. He and his younger brother, Eian, were playing cops and robbers.

They needed a gun.

The boy pointed the pistol at his brother and pulled the trigger. The bullet struck Eian in the face as he was eating mac and cheese, according to the New York Daily News.

The boys’ grandfather was the only adult at home to hear the shot. When the mother learned of the shooting, she called Santiago at work.

“He was in shock,” family friend George Rayyan told the Daily News. “He couldn’t understand his wife, she was crying so much.”

Santiago thought the refrigerator was too tall for his children to reach the handgun, Rayyan said: “He said in his eyes, that was the best spot, on the back of the fridge, because the kids couldn’t find it.”

“The gun shouldn’t have been there,” he added, “but everyone makes mistakes.”

Authorities have charged him with felony endangerment of a child. If convicted, he could spend between two and 10 years in prison.

If there is any silver lining to the story, it is that Eian’s older brother apparently doesn’t understand the full horror of what happened.

“He’s OK,” the boy’s grandfather, Hector Salgado, said of the six-year-old shooter. “He doesn’t even remember.

“He doesn’t know nothing about it,” Salgado told the Tribune. “He thinks his brother is in the hospital sick.”