Boy, 7, Visiting Family Is Killed in Drive-By Shooting

Police say a 7-year-old boy was killed in a drive-by shooting Sunday while visiting family in southwest Miami-Dade County for the holidays. According to the Miami Herald, police say the shooting in Richmond Heights, about 24 miles southwest of Miami, involved a high-powered rifle. Police say four men pulled up in a vehicle and shot at the house around 3:30pm. Relatives of the victim say that his name is Amir and that he was visiting their house from Homestead.

The boy's cousins tell the Herald that kids who were on the porch scattered when somebody started shooting. They say their cousin, who was shot in the head, was still inside the house, coming out of the bathroom, when the shooting began. At a press conference, Miami-Dade Commissioner Dennis Moss said, "It's our worst nightmare realized," the Herald reports. Local bishop Carlos Malone told reporters, "There's no prayer you can pray that takes care of these kind of problems. We have to get in the trenches." (More Miami stories.)