Chicago police are continuing their investigation into the shooting death of a 9-year-old boy in Washington Heights on New Year’s Day. Jarvis Watts was found shot inside a home in the 9400 block of South Wallace around 6:30 p.m., and he later died at Comer Children’s Hospital, officials said.
Chicago police initially categorized the case as a “death investigation,” and a CPD report provided to CWB Chicago says at least one person who was in the home told investigators that Jarvis “was playing with the gun.”
On Monday, the Cook County medical examiner’s office ruled his death a homicide, meaning it was caused by another person, but homicides are not necessarily intentional.
The CPD report said several adults were in the home at the time of the shooting, but one of them, a 27-year-old man, left before police arrived. Officers had not found the gun, the report said, although investigators did find a 45-caliber shell casing and an unused 40-caliber bullet at the scene, the report said.
According to the report, five other children between the ages of 2 and 10 were in the home when Jarvis was shot. An adult in the home told police that she told the children to go put some clothes on, and she later heard screaming. Jarvis, gravely injured, soon came down the stairs and collapsed, the report said.
Police officers found Jarvis on the living room floor, the report said, with gunshot injuries to the bridge of his nose, his left hand, and the right side of his neck. A single bullet can cause more than one gunshot injury.
Detectives continue to work the case, trying to determine if Jarvis really shot himself and, if he did, how he gained access to a gun that reportedly vanished.