BELLEVILLE, Ill. — Family and neighbors are grieving the death of 10-year-old Brandon E. Scott. Monday night, he was shot and killed at his family's home in Belleville, Illinois.
KSDK's Paula Vasan spoke with the boy’s mother through tears. She simply said whoever killed her son better get caught.
Neighbors told us bullet holes in the window of the home where the boy lived are reminders of a life taken too soon.
The Major Case Squad said the boy was found inside his family's home on Roosevelt Avenue.
Cameron Clark, who was a friend of Scott, lives down the street, and his parents agreed to let us talk with him. The two boys went to Henry Raab Elementary School together.
Monday night, Cameron learned he’d never ride the school bus with his friend again.
“There was something on Facebook and my mom told me, and I just got really sad. I saw, like all the ambulances and police cars over there," Cameron said.
He told us he doesn’t understand why anyone would shoot his friend, a boy who loved making people laugh, video games, and watching basketball with his brother and sister. Now, he’s scared for his own life.
“I just get scared to, like, leave my yard and stuff because I don't know if it could happen to me," he said.
His father told 5 On Your Side he moved with his family to the neighborhood nine years ago.
“It's kind of a shocker because there's not a lot that goes on around here. A lot of kids are always playing, there's really no drama or hardly anything like that," Bryan Clark, a neighbor, said.
Now, with the death of a child to gun violence, he wants more for his community and for his 11-year-old son.
“Just more people looking out for each other. Maybe a little more police patrols or something," Clark said.
“I'm sad. I'm upset because it's hard losing a friend," Cameron said.
People in the neighborhood call the tragedy that happened Monday night heart-wrenching, and the worst possible start to the Fourth of July holiday.
A GoFundMe page has been started to help pay for Scott's funeral.
In a statement, the Major Case Squad of Greater St. Louis said investigators are following up on multiple leads as they continue to investigate.
Anyone with information is asked to call the Major Case Squad at 618-825-5200 or Cencom at 618-825-2051.