Shortly after midnight on Nov. 26, Memphis Police Department officers responded to a shooting in the 900 block of Baltic Street where they found a 7-monthold baby girl suffering from a gunshot wound.
The baby, identified by her parents as Georgina Gomez, is still in the hospital recovering from multiple eye surgeries.
“She is an innocent baby,” said her father, Geurgen Enamorado.
A friend of the family, who did not want to be identified, said the family heard gunshots and ducked to the ground. Isis Gomez, Georgina’s mom, realized her crying baby was hurt when she went to pick her up and saw she was covered in blood, the family friend said.
“It’s been tough, and we really realized what had happened is basically a living h—,” the family friend said. “She was so happy learning how to crawl and everything, and now she’s here in the hospital. Might lose an eye.”
Dr. Regan Williams, medical director of trauma services at Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital and pediatric faculty member for University of Tennessee Health Science Center, said the increase in pediatric firearm injuries “hangs heavy on the hearts” of the hospital’s staff.
Williams said the number of patients with firearm injuries has increased steadily since 2020.
Le Bonheur has treated 161 gunshotwound victims this year through Nov. 29, according to its internal data. There were 150 pediatric firearm patients in full-year 2022, 158 in 2021 and 134 in 2020.
Mary Trice — CEO of Ride of Tears, an organization that honors children lost to gun violence — said children are afraid.
“If the children don’t feel safe, I know that parents should feel the same way,” Trice said. “I’m afraid for my grandbabies to go anywhere — school, to the store, outside on the porch. I don’t want them to go anywhere because the violence is so bad. And it seemed like all of the violence that we’re talking about, nothing’s being done about it.”
Ke’Erika Thomas, the Gomez family’s neighbor, was nearly shot during the shootout that injured baby Georgina. She was sitting on the couch in her sister’s house with her eight children, whose ages range from 1 to 9.
Thomas heard gunshots but wasn’t alarmed because she hears gunshots in the neighborhood all the time. But when she felt an impact to the back of her head, she thought she had been shot.
The couch caught the bullet, saving her life.
“The lady’s baby got hit,” Thomas said. “What if the kids were outside? It’s a lot of kids that stay on this street specifically. Any one of my kids could have gotten hit. I could have been dead in front of my kids.”
According to Le Bonheur data, there were 58 teenagers, ranging from 15 to 18 years old, shot in Memphis from January to August of this year. That made up the largest number in any of the hospital’s specific age groups. The second highest number was in the 11- to 14-year-old range.
Trice talked about the case of a recent homicide involving a group of teenagers.
Edion White, 18, and another 15-yearold are accused in the killing of 15-yearold Anthony Mason. An affidavit details a gun trade that developed into a struggle, which ended in Mason being fatally shot.
White was released from jail the day after he was arrested.
“You charge for first-degree murder, how is he out?” Trice said. “So he can go kill somebody else?”
The examples go on. A 9-year-old girl was shot Nov. 16 near 2230 Chelsea Ave. She is now recovering from her injuries.
A 12-year-old was non-critically injured after being shot on Dexter Avenue Nov. 27.
On Nov. 28, a 9-year-old was shot inside a car while traveling with her mother and two other children on Poplar Avenue near Overton Park. MPD did not provide an update on her condition as of the publication of this article.
A 16-year-old was found Nov. 29 suffering from gunshot wounds in the 1500 block of Wilson Street. He died the next day. Cardell Orrin, executive director of child-advocacy organization Stand for Children, said there are too many guns on the street.
“Trying to address the proliferation of guns is clearly one of the challenges that has to be faced, especially with the lenient state laws,” Orrin said.