Six Year Old Shot Dead in California Road Rage Accident

Crime

A horrific incident of road rage has lead to the tragic death of a six-year-old boy.

“Mommy, my belly hurts…” were the last words of Aiden Leos. According to his older sister Alexis Cloonan, he said those words moments after being shot in the stomach.  The shooting was an apparent act of road rage.

Aiden attended kindergarten at Calvary Chapel in Yorba Linda, according to local reports. He had just celebrated his birthday last week.

The chilling incident took place about 8 a.m. on the northbound side of the 55 Freeway in Orange while Aiden drove with his mother in a silver Chevrolet sedan. The boy sat in his safety seat in the right rear passenger side of the vehicle. 

The tragedy unfolded when the unidentified mother — who was not injured — reportedly flipped off the driver of a white sedan who had cut her off in the highway’s carpool lane. A passenger in the white car fired off an unknown number of shots, hitting Aiden, reports said.

The frantic mom “picked [Aiden] up and he was bleeding on her, she had blood on her clothes,” Cloonan told reporters. “And then he started turning blue, and that’s when the ambulance took him. And that’s the last time my mom saw him alive.”

The boy was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital. Police are searching for the suspects.

“Please help us find who did this to my little brother,” said Cloonan.

“It was an isolated road-rage incident between the mom and another driver from a white sedan,” California Highway Patrol Officer Florentino Olivera told Los Angeles news station KTLA-TV.

“She (Aiden’s mother) was merging to the right side to get away from this person, and as you can see if you go online and look at the photos, there’s one bullet shot in the trunk that went through the trunk and right through my nephew,” his uncle, John J. Cloonan III, said at a press conference Friday evening.

The suspected shooter remains at large, and officers are looking for a white sedan, Olivera said.

Highway patrol officers are asking the public for help, including anyone driving on the freeway that morning between 7:55 a.m. and 8:15 a.m.

“Please help us find the people that did this to my little brother,” his sister, Alexis Cloonan, said at the press conference. “He’s only 6, and he was so sweet. … I loved having him in my life.”

“If your vehicle has a dashcam, we’re asking you, please call our CHP office in Santa Ana, provide that video,” Olivera said. “If you were driving by, you saw something that was not right, call it in — even if it wasn’t something major — call our office. We want to hear from witnesses.”

Since the incident took place on Friday, May 21, community members have set up a memorial to pay tribute to the boy at the Walnut Avenue overpass bridge on the 55 Freeway, south of Katella, where the investigation had taken place. All lanes on the freeway have since been reopened.

A GoFundMe page created to help Aiden’s mother had already generated more than $40,000 as of early Saturday.

6-year old shot Crime gun crime road rage road rage California true crime

Related Posts