8-year-old Macon girl who was fatally shot may have been playing with gun, cops say
The death of an 8-year-old Macon girl who was shot Friday may have been the result of children playing with a gun, according to an initial police report.
Miracle Brantley, who died Sunday at an Atlanta as a result of her wound, was apparently in the kitchen at her grandmother’s house on Ballard Drive when her grandmother heard a gunshot and found the girl bleeding, a Bibb County sheriff’s report of the 3:30 p.m. incident said.
Sheriff’s officials as of Wednesday afternoon had yet to publicly address circumstances surrounding the shooting, which was thought to have happened at a house that sits a block north of Ell Street about 250 feet from the northbound lanes of Interstate 75.
The partially redacted initial report, made available this week, goes on to say that the child’s grandmother had driven her to a city hospital in the moments after the shooting.
It was there, outside the emergency room where Miracle had been taken, that a sheriff’s deputy spotted the automobile that the child had arrived in.
While another sheriff’s deputy stayed with the children at the car, the first deputy went inside the hospital and spoke to the grandmother, Patricia Reed.
Reed, 62, “stated that she was watching her grand kids at home ... while they did online school work when she heard a gun shot,” the report said.
“Patricia stated that she found Miracle in the kitchen with her face covered in blood and drove her to the hospital,” the report continued. “Patricia further stated that (name redacted) had brought a gun home without her knowledge and (the children) were playing with it in the kitchen when it went off.”