A toddler boy from Langley Park, Maryland was fatally shot, and his mother was wounded while she was wheeling him in a stroller outside an apartment complex. The Prince George’s County Police Department reported that the incident occurred around 5:30 pm on Thursday, February 8 near the Bedford Station Apartments.
According to Assistant Police Chief Vernon Hale III, officers were dispatched to the scene after a detective, who was in the vicinity, heard gunshots. Upon arrival, they discovered a young mother and her child with gunshot injuries. The boy, Jeremy Poou-Caceres, was transported to Children’s National Hospital, where he was pronounced dead. The mother was taken to a D.C. hospital, where she remains in stable condition with injuries deemed non-life-threatening.
The community and law enforcement are reeling from the senseless violence that led to the loss of a young life and left a mother without her child for the rest of her life. Assistant Chief Hale, visibly moved, lamented the unnecessary death of the child, emphasizing the grave consequences of reckless gunplay. “That baby did nothing to anyone… Did not deserve to die, because someone wants to come out here and play with guns,” Hale said, underscoring the permanence of the loss inflicted by such senseless acts.
Tips from the community led to the arrest of Israel Fuentes Jr. 33, and Johnny Alejandro Turcios, 28, for first-degree murder and related charges. The killing transpired when they were with two other men in a stolen car that had been carjacked. Jeremy and his mother were caught in an exchange of gunfire when the group in the car was shooting at another group of people. Police tracked down the empty stolen car, found the gun used in the incident, and later arrested Fuentes and Turcios. They are looking for others involved in the shooting.
