DUQUESNE, Pa. — Channel 11 spoke exclusively with the father of a 13-year-old girl who was shot in Duquesne. Ronald Brookins gave Channel 11 an update on his daughter’s condition at an anti-gun violence event on Sunday.
He said his daughter is now awake but still unable to speak about what happened.
>> Teenage girl shot in Duquesne, police say
“[I’ve] just been telling her I love her,” Brookins said. “Everybody’s been telling her that.”
Brookins said those simple words have been helping his teenage daughter get stronger every day. She’s even walking with some help.
“She’s doing real good,” he said. “She opened her eyes. She’s reaching for things.”
Brookins’ daughter is still in the hospital but has now been moved to a rehab unit nearly two weeks after she was shot inside her father’s home in Duquesne.
Brookins said he was at work at the time of the shooting. His daughter and her siblings were home alone playing together moments beforehand.
Police have not said how the gun went off or who may have shot it.
Channel 11 reporter Antoinette DelBel asked Brookins where the gun might have come from and if guns are kept in the house.
“I don’t know,” Brookins said. “I have no idea. I can’t answer that one for you.”
As Allegheny County Police continue to investigate what led up to the shooting, community members are coming together in prayer and song.
Brookins and his two pastor friends held a rally on the same street where the shooting happened on Sept. 10. Pastor Timothy Caldwell said the event was meant to find solutions to ending gun violence while giving young kids a voice.
“We want to connect more with more communities, more of the youth, so they can give us their thoughts, not just throwing something together that we think would work for them,” said Pastor Caldwell. “We want to hear from them. What is it that they need in order to feel better and safer for themselves?”
Brookins said the entire community needs to come together to break the cycle of violence.
" It means a lot for the community to come together. We all have to come together....It’s about the little one that’s fighting right now to get herself back on the road,” he said referring to his daughter. She’s a beautiful kid. Every kid wants to be loved, and we love her to death. Me and her mother love her to death and her siblings. Everybody loves her.”
Allegheny County Police said no charges have been filed.
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