High School Athlete is Killed and Man is Injured in Separate Unintentional Shootings

High school basketball player, Johnnie McClendon, 14, was unintentionally shot and killed in the home he shared with his grandmother in Charlotte, North Carolina. He had just returned from attending his younger brother’s birthday party. Family members said that 19-year-old Myhijee Major, who was a friend of Johnnie’s, was visiting and showing off the gun when it fired. Major originally fled the scene, but later turned himself into police who charged him with involuntary manslaughter.

Stunned by news of the shooting, a community activist said, “[e]verybody needs to stop sugarcoating it and call it what it is. We have a sickness with these kids and these guns…”

“He was only 14. He’s not going to be able to go to the prom. He’s not going to be able to have a first love, his first heartbreak, travel,” said a cousin.

And in Laurel, Mississippi, 36-year-old, Willie Hall Lack was described as a “walking miracle” after he survived an unintentional discharge that shot him “between the eyes.” There is an ongoing investigation, but for now the sheriff’s department believes that when Lack was reaching for a rifle, a Springfield .30-06, on the top shelf of a closet, a Cobra .380 handgun that was under the rifle unintentionally discharged.

Sources:

Monica Malbrough, Jesse Pierre, “‘I’m Angry’: Arrest Made in Shooting Death of 14-year-old in North Charlotte,” wcnc.com (December 6, 2023).

Jonathan Lowe, “‘I Lost my Brother’: Young Family Members Cope with Teen’s Shooting Death,” wsoctv.com (December 5, 2023).

Mark Thornton, “Two Suffer Shots to Head in Separate Cases,” leader-call.com (December 4, 2023).