Teens playing with gun in car kill man in front seat when gun fires, Georgia cops say
A 19-year-old Houston County man was killed late Tuesday when two other teens in the back seat of the car he was sitting in began playing with a gun and it fired, sending a bullet through the young man’s seat, mortally wounding him, Perry police said.
The slain man, Quadarrien Simmons, of Perry, was a front-seat passenger in a Honda Accord that was parked along Coventry Court on Perry’s east side.
The shooting happened at about 10 p.m. in a neighborhood north of Kings Chapel Road, just west of the Houston County jail.
Perry police Capt. Heath Dykes said that a 19-year-old named Tyrese Brown of Fort Valley and 17-year-old Kiasaun Bennett of Perry were sitting in the car’s back seat passing a gun “back and forth,” apparently toying with it, when it went off.
“We’re not sure how it ended up going off,” Dykes said Wednesday morning, adding that the gun had not been found.
When the gun fired it sent a bullet through Brown’s hand and then through a front seat and into Simmons’ body. Though the car was barely half a mile from Perry Hospital, doctors at the emergency room could not save Simmons’ life.
Brown was treated there and released. He was then questioned by detectives and later jailed on involuntary manslaughter and reckless conduct charges, as was Bennett.
This story was originally published November 17, 2021 at 11:42 AM.