Karma: Man Who Shot 8-year-old Boy In Neck Gets Shot In Neck by Police

Just a day after his 8th birthday, second grader Joshua Brathwaite was playing outside of his home in Concord, California when a fight broke out between two of his family’s friends.

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Little Joshua was standing in his yard when James Jarrad got into an argument with another family friend. During the argument, Jarrad pulled a gun and began shooting at another person.

Joshua’s father says one of the bullets ricocheted off the pavement and hit his son in the neck.

“I just felt something hurting,” Joshua said.

Jarrad fled the scene and officers responded to the Brathwaite home to investigate the shooting.

“It made me so angry — just, you need to come back. Just help me. You just shot my child. Help me,” recalled his mother Sarah Barela.

“They are supposed to play and ride their bikes and have fun, play video games and do things that he likes to do,” said his father, Joshua Brathwaite Sr. “Not sit in the hospital with a bullet in his neck.”

While Joshua was being released from the hospital on Monday, somebody spotted Jarrad in a nearby parking lot and called police. Again, Jarrad tried to flee the scene, but police opened fire and one of the bullets hit him in the neck.

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“Now he has a bullet in the exact same spot he shot my son,” Barela noted.

Joshua will eventually need surgery to remove the bullet that remains lodged in his neck, but for now, he’s happy to be out of the hospital.

“I am happy to be home because I want to see my brothers,” Joshua said.

As for Jarrad, he’s in stable condition in a local hospital. Once released, he’ll be booked into the county jail.

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