A 16-year-old who was playing with a gun in a Wilton Manors home when it went off and killed another 16-year-old has been arrested, authorities said.
The teen suspect was arrested on a manslaughter with a firearm charge, Broward Sheriff's Office officials said Tuesday.
The shooting happened Monday afternoon at an apartment at 403 Northwest 25th Street.
Wilton Manors Police, Fort Lauderdale Police and Fort Lauderdale Fire Rescue responded to a shooting call and found the shooting victim, 16-year-old Christopher Granados.
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Granados was rushed to a local hospital where he died from his injuries.
BSO detectives took over the investigation and spoke to teens who were in the home at the time of the shooting. They said Granados and the 16-year-old suspect were playing with firearms when one of the guns discharged and struck Granados, officials said.
According to an arrest report, Granados and the other teen both had handguns and "began playing around pointing the guns at each other."
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That's when one handgun went off and the bullet hit Granados in the head.
The report said authorities found two handguns in the apartment "in plain view."
Granados was a student at Fort Lauderdale High School, where the 11th grader charged in the shooting also attended school, records showed.
Students reacted to news of Granados' death outside the school Tuesday morning, including 11th grader Derrick Mitchell.
Mitchell said his football coach had told him about the shooting, but he thought his classmate, with whom he shared mutual friends, was in the hospital.
His face fell when told Granados had not survived.
"I'm sad that happened to him, because he seemed like a good kid," Mitchell said. "This makes me a little more aware of, like, what's going on around out here… because even while I go home, it's dangerous for me. So now I just got to watch where I go more because I don't want that to happen to me."
Another 11th grader, Alexander Parrish, remembered Granados as "a good guy… he always made everybody laugh and he was always a good person."
Parrish said losing classmates "happens too easily."
A mother who moved to South Florida from New Jersey, Corina Yildiz, said she received an automated phone call about the teen's death.
"It's really heartbreaking because I have a son that's now in the program, so it was just hard to hear that," she said. "Nobody wants to hear about anyone dying, but especially kids."
