MIAMI – Miami police have arrested a 24-year-old man accused of killing his 4-year-old niece an during argument Saturday in the city's Liberty Square neighborhood.
Ronald Jones faces charges of second-degree murder and aggravated battery.
Officer Michael Vega, a spokesman for the Miami Police Department, said Jones and the girl's mother got into an argument around 10 a.m. outside her home near Northwest 65th Street and Northwest 13th Court. The argument escalated and Jones pulled out a gun fired several shots, hitting 4-year-old Nyla Jones in the mouth, Vega said.
The mother rushed Nyla to North Shore Medical Center, where she died. Another child was hurt by shattered glass but is expected to be OK.
[ Read more: Shooting death of 4-year-old girl highlights scourge of urban gun violence ]
Jones fled in his car, but abandoned the vehicle with both of its front airbags deployed about a mile away from the site of the shooting, Vega said. A few hours later, Jones walked into a Miami police station and turned himself in, Vega said.
Family members called the shooting an accident, and said that Jones never intended to hurt Nyla.
"It’s another unfortunate, senseless act of violence that needs to stop," Miami Mayor Francis Suarez said on Twitter. "People need to find other ways to resolve conflict aside from picking up a gun."