Boy, 9, shot by gunmen looking for 12-year-old brother after fight, family says

HOUSTON – A 9-year-old boy was shot Monday after a group of men tried to force their way into a family's Fifth Ward home, police said.

Officers are searching for the gunman.

Police were called to a home in the 2900 block of Bringhurst Street after reports of a shooting.

According to investigators, three men were banging on the family's front door around midnight Sunday. The boy's mother, Shandrika Green, said the men were looking for her 12-year-old son and when she told them to go away, they tried to break down her door and started shooting.

Green said she told her four children to get down but Jabez Wiggins, who tried to protect his sister, was shot in the legs, police said.

"He said he thought about his 4-year-old little sister. He thought she was still on the couch watching TV, so he jumped up to see his sister. But he had to jump back (with) all the bullets flying through the house everywhere," his mother said.

Green said Jabez was shot once and the bullet went through both legs near his ankles. 

"He said, 'Mom, I'm hurt. I don't feel good.' I checked him and he was shot in his legs," Green said.

Jabez was taken to a hospital. Green said Jabez was unable to feel his left leg and could not walk Monday. 

No one else was injured in the shooting.

"These kids (don't) fight no more, they shoot," Green said. "These kids. Back in my day, we fight all day long, (but) it's going to be over with. These kids, they shoot, they ain't the kids we used to be at all."

Green said she knows the identities of the three men and told police.

The family is urging the shooter to stop the violence.

"I just want it to be over, I really do," said Jabez's grandmother Theresa Green. "Just turn yourself in. Just stop all this beefing and turn yourself in."

She said there were at least eight bullet holes in the living room.

"They just need to stop it. Bullets don't have no name, and my baby, now he's at the hospital and they could have kicked the door in like they tried to and just shot up all of them," Theresa Green said.

The shooting is under investigation.

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