Amir Harden was fatally shot by his father by accident while trying to protect his mother (Pictures: CBS Minnesota)
An eight-year-old boy was fatally shot allegedly by his father while trying to protect his mother.
Amir Harden’s mother, Cherish Edwards, said he was trying to shield her when his dad shot him by accident.
‘His father tried to shoot & kill me but my son was shot instead,’ Edwards wrote on a GoFundMe page.
‘Amir tried wrestling the gun out of his father hand. I screamed for him to leave and go to the neighbors, he refused & said “mommy, im not leaving you here.”‘
The father ‘shot himself in the head after accidentally shooting’ Amir, according to Edwards.
Edwards told CBS News that ‘it’s an unbearable pain’.
‘It’s just unimaginable, an 8-year-old trying to wrestle the gun out of a grown man’s hand,’ she said.
The shooting happened at the family’s home in Burnsville, Minnesota, over the weekend.
Amir died on Wednesday.
‘His 4 siblings witnessed this tragic event,’ she wrote. ‘My kids are traumatized & probably will need therapy for the rest of their lives.’
The father is hospitalized in critical condition.
The incident is under investigation by police and a city spokesperson said the father will be criminally charged if he survives.
The GoFundMe page had raised more than $9,500 as of Wednesday evening.
Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.
For more stories like this, check our news page.