A six-year-old boy who died after being shot during a suspected road rage attack while he was sitting in his car booster seat on a Southern California freeway on Friday morning has been identified.
Aiden Leos was being driven to school by his mother and was sitting in the rear of the family car when another motorist cut her up while traveling in the car pool lane of the northbound side of State Route 55, in the city of Orange, southeast of Los Angeles.
Aiden’s mother was said to have given the other driver the finger in her rear view mirror, but the gesture set off a deadly and tragic chain of events.
‘Please help us find the people that did this to my little brother. he’s only six and he was so sweet. He was a very loving boy so please help us find who did this to him,’ Alexis pleaded through tears
As she moved over towards another lane to her right, a gunman who is thought to have been sitting in the passenger seat of the suspect’s car, suddenly fired into Aiden’s vehicle, striking the boy in the back.
‘Mommy my tummy hurts!’ the youngster is said to have cried out.
After pulling over to the side of the road, Aiden’s mother picked him up and cradled him in her arms until an off-duty police office stopped to perform CPR and paramedics arrived on the scene.
‘She had blood on her clothes and he started turning blue and that’s when the ambulance took him and that was the last time my mom saw him alive,’ said Alexis Cloonan, the boy’s sister, during a tearful family press conference on Friday.
Aiden’s mother quickly pulled over to the shoulder of State Route 55 following the shooting. A single bullet hole can be clearly seen following the shooting on Friday morning.
A GoFundMe page set up for Aiden’s mother and to help with her child’s burial costs has so far managed to raise $18,000.
The horrific incident happened around 8:10am during the school run. Aiden was being taken to his kindergarten class at Calvary Chapel Yorba Linda.
Authorities are looking for a man and a woman. The male passenger is believed to have fired the fatal shot while his female accomplice was driving the vehicle, believed to be a newer model white Volkswagen wagon sedan.
A family is asking for the public’s help in identifying the suspects who shot and killed 6-year-old Aiden. The little boy was with his mother, driving to school on the 55 freeway in Orange, when they were shot at during an apparent road rage incident. https://t.co/Sr1hYV5n88 pic.twitter.com/fVvfNkfZl6
— FOX 11 Los Angeles (@FOXLA) May 22, 2021