An Ohio father shot and killed his teenage son early Tuesday morning, apparently mistaking him for an intruder, Cincinnati Police said.
According to his father, the teen, identified as Georta Mack, 14, left for school, but returned through the basement, unbeknownst to his father, said police.
“I just shot my son by accident,” Mack’s father told a 911 operator. “He scared me. I thought he was in school. I heard noise and then I went downstairs looking. He jumped out at me. I shot him,” the father is heard saying in a 911 recording obtained by CNN affiliate WCPO Tuesday.
“Oh God. Oh God. Why didn’t you go to school?”
The investigative unit is not releasing the father’s name yet, according to said Lt. Tim Brown of the Cincinnati Police Department.
Georta was taken to Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center where he later died.
Both Cincinnati Police and the Hamilton County Prosecutor’s Office are investigating the shooting.
This is at least the second case of a family member shooting and killing a family member — apparently by mistake — within the last two weeks. On the night of December 29, a woman in St. Cloud, Florida, shot her 27-year-old daughter, apparently mistaking her for a burglar. The woman fired only one round, police said, and the daughter later died at a hospital.
CNN did not identify family members in that case by request of St. Cloud Police who said the father of the victim had been an undercover police officer.
St. Cloud police said the shooting appears to be accidental, but that an investigation is ongoing.
