16-year-old Mario Whitehead, of Orlando, Florida, was playing basketball with friends when he was shot in the shoulder. Another teen, 17-year-old Takim Neal, was carrying a handgun when he unintentionally discharged the weapon.
Accounts of what happened vary. Takim told police he reached into his waistband to check the gun when it went off. But other witnesses say he was playing with the gun when he fired it.
Mario is in the hospital, the bullet still lodged in his spinal cord. He is paralyzed from the waist-down.
Takim was arrested and charged with carrying a concealed firearm, improper exhibition of a dangerous firearm, discharging firearm in public, possession of a firearm by a minor and culpable negligence causing injury.
Police did not indicate where and how the minor obtained the handgun.
"We just pray he walks again and that everyone out there understands the danger of guns," said Mario's aunt. "It was an accident, but it wasn't an accident that this young man had a gun and was in a public park."
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