7-year-old boy stabs playmate dead

MANILA, Philippines—The police took a seven-year-old boy into custody after he stabbed his six-year-old playmate with a barbecue stick on Monday morning, sending her to the hospital where she later died.

Case investigator Alvin Quisumbing of the Quezon City Police District (QPCD) said the boy was placed in the care of the Women and Children’s Protection Desk.

Quisumbing added that the boy seemed to be in shock over what he did as he was clinging to his mother while crying. It was not known, however, if he was aware that his playmate had passed away.

The children were neighbors in Barangay (village) Gulod, Novaliches who often played together, the policeman said. The boy was a Grade 1 student while the girl was in kindergarten.

The tragedy happened around 8:30 a.m. Monday as the two were playing on the street in front of the victim’s house.

Quisumbing said the two were engaged in horseplay with the victim pinching the boy who was down on all fours.

Irked, the boy got hold of a barbecue stick lying on the ground and blindly stabbed the girl who was behind him.

Quisumbing said the victim was hit in the lower left abdomen with the stick piercing her bladder.

She was rushed by her mother to Novaliches General Hospital where she died of her injury 15 minutes later.

Later in the day, policemen from the Novaliches police station took the boy into custody and turned him over to the QCPD Women and Children’s Protection Desk.—Julie M. Aurelio