2y ago

Florida teen allegedly shoots, kills sister after argument over Christmas gifts

www.cbsnews.com

A 14-year-old boy allegedly fatally shot his older sister in Florida after a family argument over Christmas presents, officials said Tuesday.

The teen had been out shopping on Christmas Eve with Abrielle Baldwin, his 23-year-old sister, as well as his mother, 15-year-old brother and sister's children, Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri said during a news conference.

The teenage brothers got into an argument about who was getting more Christmas presents.

"They had this family spat about who was getting what and what money was being spent on who, and they were having this big thing going on in this store," Gualtieri said.

296 comments

Just as the architects of the Constitution intended
- As the 2nd amendment says:
  A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, well-regulated militias shall have the right to keep and bear arms. Also, in a twist completely unrelated to that other sentence, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. I'm talking rifles, muskets, flintlocks, hell, even futuristic weapons nobody's invented yet. Not part of a militia? Doesn't matter. Completely unregulated? That's right. Also, by 'people' we mean everyone: kids, witches, the addled, it's a free for all!
  Of course, most people only know the final trimmed-down edited version of that amendment. The original was much better, IMO.
  
  Your command of the English language is... incomplete. Read this, then re-read your comment:
  https://constitution.org/1-Constitution/2ll/schol/2amd_grammar.htm
- At 14 and 15, both of these kids are too young to legally own a pistol in Florida.
  https://www.fdle.state.fl.us/FPP/FAQs2.aspx
  So, yeah, pretty sure they aren't concerned with the Constitution.
  
  You’ve made an excellent point, just not the one you think
  
  Not owned, but easy and unhindered access to one. That is the problem : Way too many guns for way too little brains.
  
  I don’t recall the forefathers mentioning the age for gun ownership. Toddlers need to protect themselves against perverted republicans. #babyArms
  
  Ignore the mob. They know nothing but insults. It's a damn echo chamber in here.
Jesus.
The 14 year old brother shot his 23 year old sister.
Then the 15 year old brother shot the 14 year old brother, and disposed of the handgun.
The 23 year old sister is dead. The 14 year old brother is stable.
The 14 year old is being charged with first degree murder. The 15 year old is being charged with attempted first degree murder.
The sister had a child, which was not harmed.
- Everything about this is messed up and tragic
  
  ...and preventable. Emotional teenagers should not have access to firearms!
- This whole thing is tragic and beyond dumb.
  
  It would be tragic if this didn't feel like reading a weather report.
- The 23 year old sister had 2 children, one of which was already 6 years old, if my reading skills aren't failing me.
  
  he's going to kill his uncle when he's like 12
  
  This reads like a shitty math problem.
  Jamal, 14M, shoots his 23 year old sister, Abriele, dead. Abriele had a 6 year old son How many years will it take for the 6 year old to be old enough to kill his Uncle in cold blood on Christmas? And what age will Jamal be?
- Apparently the sister died from drowning on her OWN blood.
  Anyway, merry jolly Christmas everyone!
- The sister had a child, which was not harmed.
  Arguable
- The sister had a child, which was not harmed.
  I thought you said "armed", and if only... if that kid had been packing he could have been the good guy with a gun who would have mowed down all the bad guys and saved the day.
- What a wonderful family, with a lot of stable geniuses!
- That family reunion is going to awkward AF next year.
More guns in the hands of the other children would have kept this travesty from occurring. #hopesandprayers
'Murica!
- If the 11-month old was armed, all this could have been stopped!
The bullet traveled through her left arm and into her chest, popping both of her lungs. She suffered internal bleeding and was unable to breathe
That's the nice way of saying she drowned in her own blood.
"These young kids — 14, 15 years old — routinely carry firearms and this is what happens when you got young delinquents that carry guns," Gualtieri said. "They get upset, they don't know how to handle stuff, and they end up shooting each other."
Just FYI, this is not limited to children. There's plenty of adults who have zero idea on how to handle stress without flashing a piece. I've seen about six different people use that as a method of indicating I'm getting over in your lane on my way into work pre-pandemic.
- I’m pretty gullible and I believe a lot of stuff. So I’m asking this sincerely.
  Are you saying that in America people are tapping their widow with a Glock and giving you the stink eye to get into your lane? Like, instead of indicating and then waiting for a safe gap?
  
  America is pretty big, and that isn't something that happens where I live (Seattle)
  But there are parts of this country where a surprisingly large percentage of people are completely fucking insane and peacock with weapons in reckless ways. It also isn't unusual for children to have guns, even if it isn't legal.
  There's a high school in rural Colorado that has given up on doing anything about guns in their high school because something like 30% of students are armed on any given day.
  I grew up in Tennessee, and students were allowed to store guns in their cars parked in the high school parking lot.
  I have met many people who open-carry and then openly emphasize it to others because they want to be intimidating. It's a part of their identity, and they will let you know in inappropriate ways.
  This country is weird. I'm happy to live in a less violent part of it.
  
  I've never seen someone flash a gun in my almost 30 years in the US.
  
  That does seem to be what he is lying about, yes.
  
  I think it is generally unlikely but am also sure that there are places where this is part of the culture.
  In Florida you’re allowed to use lethal force if you justifiably believe that your safety is threatened. When lockdown first started, there was a video of a dude having a meltdown at a Costco because he had to wear a mask. The person at the door was a woman of 65-70 and the man child pumped up his chest and yelled “I feel threatened” at her, which I learned in Florida for threatening to murder someone over an inconvenience.
- Good God what city do you live in?
- Jesus. Where the fuck do you live that people do that?
15-year-old brother and sister's children
This sentence is a great argument for the Oxford comma.
- The sentence is a great argument for editorial oversight. How'd a copy editor let that go to print???
  
  Copy editor got laid off
- This whole article was confusing for me.
  
  There are 2 brothers and 1 sister, who has her own child.
  14 year old brother shoots 23 year old sister.
  15 year old brother shoots 14 year old brother in retaliation.
  Writing isn't difficult, but most journalists suck donkey shit at what they do.
- This isn't a series. Oxford commas are for a series.
  
  I got a little lazy with the copy/paste. The first item of the series isn't in the quote.
Go into any of the relationship subreddits today and for the next few days and you will see countless Americans melting down into various degrees of rage and bitterness over Xmas presents.
It’s like this very goddamn year.
Can anyone explain this part of the culture to me?
I’m not saying I hate all Americans or anything ridiculous like that, the cast majority of Americans I’ve met are good hearted people but when it comes to Xmas and in what I’m given understand is the modern vernacular: “y’all cray.”
Don’t any of your families still watch the Charlie Brown Christmas? Because you really should.
- Go toxic places to read toxic things. I've never heard of this. But also I can't imagine going to a relationship board and expecting to come away with anything but misanthropy regardless of time of year.
- Materialism is really big with a lot of people. My in-laws kids are spoiled rotten and only accept big brand name stuff because that's all their parents give them for Christmas and Birthdays. Same people who can't afford to pay their mortgage and are likely to lose the house in a few months.
  I like present-less holidays. Better to focus on just being with people I find. Also helps if there's a lot of good, homemade food.
  
  I like present-less holidays. Better to focus on just being with people I find.
  presence > presents
  
  For me it’s all about consumables and experience. You like sauerkraut? I just made you a jar. You like classical music? Here are two tickets to the symphony. I just avoid stuff unless it’s like plates for someone who moved into their first apartment.
  
  Americans live in a state of constant stress that is satiated by material possessions and trying to impress or be better than others. These kids were just trying to get their dose of imbalanced brain chemicals
- There are 335 million people in the United States.
  One asshat shot someone.
  I'm not defending guns, shitty culture, or shitty people, but this is clearly a case where this kid has some sort of mental disorder. Literally hundreds of millions of families watched Charlie Brown and went the entire holiday without murdering each other
  
  There were 89 shootings in the united states on Christmas day. Source with incident reports for each one.
  
  No it is not clearly a case where the kid has some sort of mental disorder. You know literally nothing about this person.
  I would probably bet that this kid made a stupid split second choice in the heat of the moment about something that (partially likely due to raging teenage hormones) probably seemed very important at the time, and the guilt will haunt him until the end of his life (which, statistically speaking, just got much shorter on average).
  This is exactly why guns are so dangerous. It gives people (in this case, a literal child without a fully developed brain) the capability to make a decision to end another life in a split second.
  
  If it was the only shooting that day, it would have been a peaceful one for a change. Hint: It wasn't.
  
  340M.
- Entirely too many people base their self worth on what other people think of them.
  So "I didn't get enough shinies" = "nobody really loves me" = "I'm a worthless human being".
  Alternately "I didn't get enough shinies for my kids" = "I'm a bad parent" = "I'm a worthless human being."
  Then that gets reflected outwards, poorly. :(
  Breaking that cycle of seeking approval from other people is one of the hardest things you can do. At our core, we all seek validation on some level or other.
- Is it all about how terrible the gf/bf is for not magically getting the super perfectist thing ever?
  
  It’s mostly people running a mental ledger then comparing the value of presents to how much they do in the relationship as a journal for the shortfall in gift value.
  Often siblings resenting one another for perceived (or even sometimes objectively clear) favouritism.
If only there was a good sibling with a gun to stop him...
- technically, there was 😐
- There was - it made things worse:
  "The 15-year-old brother came outside with his own semiautomatic handgun and allegedly shot the younger teen in the stomach"
That's it no more guns... For minors that is.
- Republicans: "No! In fact, we'll make sure that it's legal for minors to carry weapons without any adult supervision!!!"
  
  Fools...
- Are you suggesting to take away my God given second amendment right?
  
  'God given' is the fucking funniest part about this.
  
  Missing the /s there, too many folks taking you seriously.
  
  Unironically yes.
  
  Its not god given and yes it should be taken away. Constitutions can be changed or what do you think amendment means?
  
  lol you’ll need to point at the right part of a holy book and convince us that the Abrahamic god wants you to have guns.
  
  Only whites should have guns as the Mulford Act intended
  
  For minors yes. Unless they take safety classes for at least 3yrs.
  
  You need to put '/s' at the end of your post so people know you're being sarcastic.
Three years ago I had to stop my 17 year-old adopted sister from hitting our elderly mother over $30 of missing Amazon crap on Christmas day, then I called the sheriff on she and her baby daddy. Five cars came to mediate the situation.
Needless to say, I don't go to family Christmases anymore.
Families suck.
- Sorry to hear that. That's awful. If you have your own family in the future, that's your chance to make sure nothing like that happens in it. We learn from the mistakes we experience.
  I honestly feel like we get better with each generation from experiences like this.
  
  I've read too many history books to think that things get better with our species over time, and my time is too valuable to me to waste on kids, but that's just me.
  I hope the choices you've made are fulfilling for you.
- I hope you have the opportunity to build a family (via biology or social bond) that better lives up.
  
  I learned to be happy on my own, which is the best thing ever if you ask me.
  I don't need other people to live a fulfilling life, and I hope I never feel like I need anyone but myself.
- Lol, what? I'd beat the shit out of her if she tried to lay a hand on me mom.
  She'd learn real fucking quick about what it really means to beat on someone weaker than you.
  
  It's a nice thought but I'm pretty sure my beating the shit out of a 17 year-old girl wouldn't have reflected well on me in front of five sheriff's deputies.
Strict liability for whoever was the legal owner of the gun(s), I say.
Whoever let these children get their hands on the firearm is absolutely a murderer. Even if it someone who let their gun get stolen from their car. Definitely if it was a family member or friend.
- Oh, I remember that event with an actor killing a camera operator with a prop gun (jokingly pointing it at her) or something.
  The person responsible for props was a complete dumb baboon and guilty of murder, yes.
  However, I was shocked by the fact that so many people think that pointing a real gun, even if it's a prop, at somebody without checking that it's not loaded is normal and thus that actor was innocent. They were defending that action as if they themselves would really have taken a gun and squeezed the trigger while pointing at someone without checking.
  So maybe it's about responsibility and education, not ownership of guns.
  Because, say, Moldova (off the top of my mind), hardly a rich country or even with a healthy society, has gun laws more liberal than in USA, and doesn't have school shootings and such events.
  Switzerland and Austria have very liberal gun laws, again possibly more so than in USA, and don't have such a problem.
  
  Can't speak for Moldova or Austria, but I would not call Switzerland's gun laws liberal.
  They are VERY strict. Gun ownership rates are high, but there are tons of restrictions and licensing requirements on ownership and sale of guns there. The country is proof that having a strong regulatory structure does not necessarily prevent gun ownership and should absolutely be considered a model for where the US regulator environment should be moving (universal registration including 2nd hand sales, full license checks for all purchases including ammo, effective bans on large categories of weapons, mandatory training, and the like).
  People who love "gun rights" always cite Switzerland without even doing the most basic Wikipedia-level research on it.
  
  and Austria have very liberal gun laws, again possibly more so than in USA,
  Austria has relatively relaxed gun laws for Europe. but it's still fairly strict compared to the USA.
  
  Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't those places where you're required to take some kind of classes to be able to qualify to own a gun? Isn't it also pretty easy for anyone from the police to be able to take them from you within reason if they find you to be violating some laws?
- Even if it someone who let their gun get stolen from their car.
  No.
America is hell.
- A lot of third world countries are.
And Florida’s answer to this, along with so much of the country, is more guns. Absolute insanity
Well, those kids had already been born, so IDGAF. Vote Republican!
Unclear why second brother being charged with attempted murder but it is presumably because there was a delay between the two shootings.
- Revenge kill your own family....hmmmmmmmm
A daily occurrence in Red States, unfortunately.
- I mean, probably true, but misleading? You're definitely way more likely to get shot in pretty much any major US city, almost all of which are blue.
  Not making any value judgement of one vs another. Just saying that this particular issue is pretty ubiquitous. Definitely not just a "red state" thing.
  
  https://www.axios.com/2023/10/16/america-gun-deaths-crime-south
  It's actually both a huge and growing issue in red states specifically. Plus the guns people are using in crimes in states with more restrictive gun laws are coming from the states with less restrictive gun laws.
  Basically, the more people who have guns, the more likely those people are to use those guns. Go figure.
  Those figures are per capita however. So while there are more gun deaths in California, you are significantly more likely to be killed in New Mexico to gun violence.
  
  https://www.americanprogressaction.org/article/cities-in-blue-states-experiencing-larger-declines-in-gun-violence-in-2023/
Christmas is ruined forever for that family.
This would never have happened if the sister had had a gun of her own : she would have been able to retaliate, and kill her brother before he could kill her, and we would have gotten a happy ending. I just don't understand, it seems so simple to me : just issue a gun to every child over the age of 5 (months)! There, done !
Florida: the dong of amerkuh
The 23 year old sister should've had a gun also, to protect herself from 14 year old boys /s
[The 14-year-old boy has] been charged with first-degree murder, child abuse and being a delinquent in possession of a firearm, police said. "These young kids — 14, 15 years old — routinely carry firearms..."
This is where USA culture feels alien to me. It is well known that children at that age tend to have poor emotional regulation, and underdeveloped physical and mental skills. The adults have duty of care, and they've allowed the child to wield a gun and kill someone. I would think that surely the parents have been criminally negligent in this case. But no, in the USA it's apparently totally normal for children to carry around lethal weapons as though they were a toy. The outcome is sad, but unsurprising.
Just another NRA Freedom Celebration™ folks…. Nothing to see here.
- 'Course, the kid being armed is illegal and shooting your sister over jealousy, last time I checked, isn't an appropriate legal use of deadly force. For a freedom celebration I'd expect less "people going to prison."
  This is more "NRA freedom celebration" material, featuring Keanu Reeves no less.
- Yes because gang members are totally card carrying members of the NRA lol
  
  I didn’t say they were. But the NRA is certainly celebrating their rights to murder.
  Also, nowhere in the active does it say they were gang members. Keep your racist shit to yourself.
Dumbs gonna dumb..
probably need more guns?
Sanest Floridan family.
- I’m sure the Republican Party will be able to justify it somehow.
why is this news on here we don't need to hear about this shit
- Sir this is the news community
- Well, it is recent US news... where else would it go?
  I had to remove it from World News because it's a US story.
  
  the garbage can because it's poison

296 comments