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When 13-year-old Lourdes Guzman-DeJesus was shot and killed on a school bus in Homestead yesterday by a classmate, the central question for police was whether another student had deliberately killed her or whether a kid sneaking a gun into school shot her accidentally.
This morning, police say it’s the latter. Jordyn Alexander Howe, a 15-year-old, has been charged with manslaughter after detectives say he accidentally fired a gun into Guzman-DeJesus’s neck while showing it off on the school bus.
Howe and Guzman-DeJesus were en route to Palm Glades Preparatory Academy and Somerset Silver Palms, the Homestead-area charter schools they respectively attend, with dozens of other kids yesterday morning.
Around 6:45 a.m., Howe pulled the gun out of his backpack to show it off to other kids on the bus, the Miami Herald reports.
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The weapon accidentally fired a single shot, which hit Guzman-DeJesus in the neck. The girl was airlifted to Miami Children’s Hospital, but died from her injuries.
Lourdes’ family was left shocked at the tragedy; they described the girl as cheerful and music-loving.
“Feels like just yesterday I saw her running around in her Pamper, dancing and modeling for the camera,” her mother, Ady, says in a statement to the press. “Times and moments spent with Jina are memories I will cherish and keep in my heart forever.”
Howe has been charged with manslaughter and carrying a concealed firearm. Police have not said where the teen got the gun.
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