2-Year-Old Boy In Stroller Dies After Getting Caught In Crossfire Of Shooting

A 2-year-old Maryland boy was killed and his mother wounded Thursday in the crossfire of a shooting in Langley Park.

Jeremy Poou-Caceres was found inside his stroller with gunshot wounds when a local detective arrived at the scene after hearing shooting, the Prince George’s County Police Department said in a statement.

According to the department, the detective attempted to perform lifesaving measures on the toddler until medical authorities arrived, but the boy was pronounced dead shortly after arriving at a hospital.

The toddler’s mother was found with a non-life-threatening gunshot wound, police said.

Speaking at a press conference Friday, the police department’s assistant chief announced the arrests of two suspects in the shooting, 33-year-old Israel Fuentas Jr. and 28-year-old Johnny Alejandro Turcios.

The assistant chief, Vernon Hale III, described the successful arrests as a “50-50 partnership” between the police and the community, after receiving a number of calls from witnesses with information on the two suspects. Hale told reporters that there had been recent gang activity in the Langley Park area, but that the toddler’s death would be the first homicide there in 90 days.

One witness told police that the two suspects had been engaged in an argument with others over drug distribution territory before the gunfire began, according to The Washington Post.

A neighbor told the outlet that she took in Jeremy and his mother for a few months last year, and was heartbroken to learn of the toddler’s death.

“Jeremy, to me, was a very sweet child,” the neighbor told the Post. “They were like family. He was like one of my children, living with me in the apartment.”

According to charging documents cited by local CBS