A 12-year-old boy was shot and killed on a Bridgeport Street Tuesday night as he walked home from a corner store.
The boy, identified as Clinton Howell, was shot in front of his home on Willow Street just after 9 p.m.
”As he was coming up the steps, someone came by and just started shooting and two of the bullets hit him and he ended up just falling inside the house on the floor,” said Gamel Dawkins, Clinton Howell's brother.
He was rushed to the hospital where he was pronounced dead a short time later.
The victim's father, Carlton Howell, was so distraught he could barely speak outside the family's home on Wednesday.
”Why they gotta take my son, why, why my son? He don’t trouble nobody,” he said.
Howell was a seventh-grader at Bridge Academy in Bridgeport.
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"Clinton was a friend to everyone. He greeted all of us with a smile and either a high-five, handshake or side hug each morning," said Denise Moller, a teacher at Bridge Academy. "He walked around with a smile on his face and an abundance of kindness and goodwill in his heart."
Detectives have processed evidence and have developed a person of interest, according to Bridgeport police.
They said they do not believe Howell was the target and said they believe it's possible that the target was someone who was walking with him at the time of the shooting.
”A baby. He’s only 12. Have not even begun life. Just went into the seventh grade. They love him. Little boy going to the store. When is it going to stop?" April Barron, a friend of the family, said.
