Mother urges families to secure firearms after teen son shot, loses eye

CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCSC) — A 14-year-old boy is facing a long recovery after he was shot in the face at a downtown Charleston apartment complex Friday, losing his left eye in the process.

His mother is now urging gun owners to keep firearms locked up and away from children.

A hospital call changed everything for Davida Simmons, whose son, Derrick, had been shot.

“He was like, Mom, I can’t play football no more. And I tell him like, you can still do anything that’s possible. Like, don’t let this hinder you,” Simmons said.

The Charleston Police Department says officers responded to the Bridgeview Apartment Complex around 1 p.m. Friday and found the 14-year-old with a gunshot wound to the face. Police say the boy and a 17-year-old friend were handling a gun when the older teen pointed it at him and fired. The suspect later admitted to shooting him, according to police.

“I got the first call around 1:35. I had, like, 20-something missed calls. From my kids seeing it, my son, the younger brother, was shot. So, I was panicking,” Simmons said. ” So, I came down to the hospital. I talked to one of the nurses when I got here. She was telling me that my son was shot twice. He was shot once in the eye. Then he was shot once in the shoulder. So, I asked the doctor. I was like, can you save his eye? His eye is not savable at all. His eye is completely gone.”

Simmons says her son is recovering from surgery, but the trauma is still with him.

“He was telling me that he was scared. And I told him, like, the best birthday gift was you still here,” Simmons said.

She said her son has had nightmares since the shooting.

“He was trying to figure out, like, why he can’t open his eyes. He was trying to open his eyes. So, he finally grasped the idea last night when I told him you can’t open your eyes because your eye is not there anymore. So, he started crying because he was trying to figure out, like, why? Like, why did this happen to me?” Simmons said.

As her son begins a long recovery that will include getting a prosthetic eye, Simmons is urging gun owners to make sure children can’t access their firearms.

“If you own a firearm, the best thing for you to do, if you have kids that’s active or any situation, it’s best to keep it locked out. Because things like this can happen. I don’t want another mother to go through what I’m going through,” Simmons said. “For any mother that owns a firearm, it’s best to keep it away from your kids, because things like this can happen, even if it’s an accident or meant to happen, but the best thing for them to do is just keep the guns locked up.”

Simmons said she is a single mother and has had to take time off work to care for her son.

“My daughter started a GoFundMe because, like I said, I wasn’t prepared to take off work. I wasn’t prepared for none of this. And I work from check to check. So, it’s like, I had to take off because I have to take him and I don’t want to leave him by himself,” Simmons said. “I just need everybody just to keep us in their prayers. And if you’re able to help out, you can find me on Facebook.”

Jerome Smalls, developer of youth outreach for the Charleston Police Department, said preventing gun violence takes a community effort.

“There’s a culture around firearms, right? Around it being exciting or cool or part of a facade or an identity. And we need to do a better job both in schools and our communities and as a whole in changing that culture and that narrative of what it means to be cool and to be associated with firearms,” Smalls said.

Smalls said many young people access firearms through unlocked vehicles.

“The kids call it poking, where they go pull loose door handles, and if it’s unlocked, that’s the number one way firearms are getting in the hands of not just young people, but other folks in our community is by stealing them from unlocked vehicles,” Smalls said. “If we can get a better hold in marketing and understanding that, hey, you have a very dangerous piece of machinery that you own and you need to be accountable and responsible with that machinery, I think that right there, it doesn’t end it all, but it can curve a lot of young people getting their hands on firearms.”

Smalls said the department is working with local organizations, including Representation Matters, on youth programs focused on keeping guns out of young people’s hands.

Carlos DeVeaux, co-executive director of the Representation Matters Foundation, said he works directly with the teen suspect and his family.

“It’s a very unfortunate situation, and it’s kind of personal because I work hand-in-hand with the children in the community. And the teenager that it happened to, I work hand-in-hand with him and his parents,” DeVeaux said. “I just think that parents need to pay more attention to the children. And don’t give them too much options, and they don’t need as much space. But most of all, men, more Black men need to step up and get into these children’s lives, pay attention to their movement, pay attention to what bothers them, because too much guns are getting into these children’s hands. And they do not have the knowledge.”

DeVeaux said his organization works to show young people role models who look like them.

“If you show a child that somebody that looks like them have done it before, they feel that they can do it,” DeVeaux said.

According to the Charleston Police Department, the 17-year-old suspect, of Charleston, was arrested and charged with assault and battery of a high and aggravated nature, possession of a firearm during the commission of a violent crime, and possession of a firearm under 18.

He was booked into the South Carolina Department of Juvenile Justice.