ST. LOUIS — The teenager who police say accidentally shot and killed himself Thursday afternoon was a ninth-grader who loved music and was always willing to help out around his house.
“He was a good kid. He was a really good kid,†said Julia Butler, who described herself as 15-year-old Dalton Escobar-Piatchek’s grandma. “He had some problems. That’s because there’s a lot of trauma with everything that happened to him in the past.â€
Dalton was shot just after 2 p.m. in the 3800 block of Missouri Avenue in the city’s Marine Villa neighborhood, police said. He was inside a home and unconscious when police arrived, and was later pronounced dead at a hospital.
Butler said she was not the teen’s biological grandmother, but she had taken him in. They lived together in that block, and she was at the store when the shooting happened.
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Dalton was in ninth grade at Kairos Academies. Butler said she had a strong relationship with him, and he was a kid who could always bargain his way through a deal.
Dalton loved Snapple, hot chips and any candy he could get his hands on, frequently asking Butler for five dollars to spend on snacks. He also tried hard to earn money by mowing lawns and doing other work. He was looking forward to turning 16 in August so he could get a job, Butler said.
Witnesses told officers Dalton was holding the gun on Thursday afternoon and attempting to put a round in the chamber when the gun fired and struck the boy.
Butler said she’s heard a lot of different stories about what happened and isn’t sure what to believe. But she said she always made sure her home was gun-free.
“I’m the lame grandma,†she said.
But she added that Dalton and her other grandkids did know how to handle guns.
“They knew how to take a gun apart, so it wasn’t like they were new to guns,†Butler said. “He did not have a gun around us. That was (another) boy’s gun. He was never one of those kids.â€
Dalton’s shooting was one of at least four shootings over seven hours Thursday in the city.
Two men were arguing around 3 p.m. at the Zoom Gas Station parking lot on North Tucker Boulevard when one pulled out a gun and shot the other, police said. The man was in critical condition.
Then, just before 5 p.m. a man was found shot dead in a car in the 8900 block of Annetta in the city’s Baden neighborhood.
The last shooting happened around 9 p.m. and was also in the city’s Baden neighborhood. A woman was shot in the 800 block of Muriel Street after getting off a bus.