7-year-old boy fatally shoots himself in Englewood

CHICAGO (FOX 32 News) - A 7-year-old boy died Sunday afternoon when police say he accidentally shot himself in the chest.

The shooting happened inside the boy’s home in the 6700 block of south Aberdeen in Englewood.

The child is identified as Devon Lofton who lived at the home with his four young brothers, mother and grandmother.

A family friends told FOX32 he learned the boys had been playing with the gun ‘like they saw on TV’ right before the shooting.

Chicago police arrived on scene around 4 Sunday afternoon and paramedics rushed the child to University of Chicago Comer Children’s hospital where he died.

One next door neighbor says she called 911 when a boy came running inside her home.

“He came through the kitchen door 'Claudia, call the police, call the paramedics! DV has been shot' and I called and he ran back out the door,” said Claudia Harris.

For nearly an hour Sunday afternoon police stood nearby talking to two kids about the incident as family members arrived on scene visibly distraught as to what had happened.

The local alderman says this never should have happened.

“If you are going to have a gun in the house they need to be secured, in lock boxes or little locks on the triggers and away from children,” said 16th ward Alderman Toni Foulkes. “Kids find them, if there is a gun in the house 99 percent children know where they are.”

No word on if any adults were around at the time of the accident or who the gun belonged to.

Chicago police are investigating.