IVES ESTATES, Fla. – A Miami-Dade correctional officer’s 11-year-old son died after a shooting on Thursday in Miami-Dade’s Ives Estates neighborhood, according to the Miami-Dade Police Department.
Detective Alvaro Zabaleta said the boy was shot in the chest while he was home with his four siblings, aged 9 to 15 years old. According to Detective Chris Thomas, their parents were at work.
Through a GoFundMe page, the victim’s mother, Tiffany Callaway, identified him as Shemarion Burse, who went by the nickname “Fat Boy.”
Callaway wrote that her son was “(l)oving, playful and always there to put a smile on your face when you needed.”
“(Imagining) life without him is something we never thought we’d have to do as a family, and even worse, we have to lay him to rest,” she wrote.
Miami-Dade Fire Rescue personnel responded at about 5:10 p.m., to a third-floor apartment at the gated Horizons North condominium complex, at 665 Ives Dairy Rd.
Fire Rescue personnel in an ambulance met with a helicopter at Andover Middle School, at 121 NE 207 St., in Miami Gardens, to fly the wounded boy to Jackson Memorial Hospital’s Ryder Trauma Center. A doctor there later pronounced him dead, police said.
Outside of the hospital, a Miami-Dade police officer walked with a tearful woman who was wearing a white shirt with the logo of the Miami-Dade Corrections and Rehabilitation Department. The police officer hugged her before entering the building.
Miami-Dade police confirmed Friday that Burse was shot by his 13-year-old sibling, who took the gun from a case inside the master bedroom closet of the apartment.
Police said the shooting was accidental and do not expect to file charges.
Miami-Dade Corrections & Rehabilitation Department spokesperson Juan Diasgranados said the agency mourns with Burse’s family and requested privacy on their behalf.
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Local 10 News Assignment Desk Editor Luis Castro contributed to this report.
Editor’s note: Miami-Dade police initially reported that the victim was 10 years old, but later corrected that to 11. Local 10 News has updated the article to reflect his correct age.