CLEVELAND — A 4-year-old boy is recovering after he was shot in his home in the early overnight hours of Thursday morning.
Cleveland Police say it happened when someone sprayed multiple homes with bullets on East 109th Street, near Elk Ave, in Cleveland's Glenville neighborhood.
“Me and my daughter were downstairs and we heard the shooting. Then we ran upstairs to go check on the kids," said Diane Holder, who lives next door.
She showed News 5 a bullet hole in the front of her house and a stray bullet on the front porch sitting several inches away from her children's plastic pink toy kitchen.
“I’m glad my kids are safe because this is crazy,” Holder said.
The side and front of her neighbor's house where the toddler was hit had multiple bullet holes. No other injuries were reported.
News 5's overnight photographer witnessed a family with multiple young children being ushered outside of the home once police arrived.
Cleveland: 4-year-old shot on E109 just north of St. Clair. EMS says they're in stable condition. Casings at E109 & Elk suggest this was someone shooting into the house. Multiple kids were inside the home during the shooting. There was a murder just down the street earlier today pic.twitter.com/LlMomXGg5h
— Mike Vielhaber (@MVielhaber) October 26, 2023
“Just to know a baby had to go through that and be in that is a sad thing,” said Lakina Higgins.
She runs a 24-hour at-home daycare across the street and said she was grateful no one was hurt more severely.
“Anybody could’ve been out here. There’s kids in this neighborhood. Innocent lives could’ve been taken over something like that,” she said.
Less than a day earlier, police responded to a fatal shooting several blocks away. A 19-year-old was killed at a gas station at E 110th and St. Clair.
Glenville neighbors said they're tired of the violence.
“We gotta just start to do more, do more work as a community to fight this off,” Higgins said.
Holder added, “There’s a lot of violence and shooting and stuff going on everywhere. You just got to pray, pray to God that he’s got you and your family covered.”
EMS said the 4-year-old is in stable condition.
Police have not released details about potential suspects in the case.
Update: A previous version of this story stated that the 4-year-old shot was a girl. News 5 has since learned that the victim was a boy.
