A shooter left one child dead and another fighting for her life after opening fire on a car they were in.
A six-year-old boy, identified as David Birchfield III, was pronounced dead after being rushed to hospital following the shooting - while his sister, nine, was in a critical condition, according to a St Louis Metropolitan Police Department incident summary.
Bullets were sprayed from an alleyway at the vehicle - which also contained a 27-year-old man, a woman, 31, understood to be David's mum, and a seven-year-old girl - in St Louis on Saturday.
The adults were not injured but the third child sustained cuts from shattered glass.
They told police the unknown person began shooting at around 1.48pm in the Highland Avenue and North Euclid Avenue, before rushing the children to hospital, reports CNN.
Lieutenant Colonel Ronnie Robinson, of St. Louis Police, said: "We do not believe their children or their mom were the intended victims."
A man who lives opposite the scene was home with his daughters at the time and later found a bullet hole in one of their windows.
"It's scary," said the dad, who did not wish to be named. "You think that you are providing, protecting them, going to work every day, trying to keep them warm and for something like this happens, you really can't protect them."
He said such incidents of violence has left his family considering moving away.
"We got back and forth with this all the time," he said. "By her being raised over here, it wasn't like that when we were younger."
Police found ballistic damage on the victims' vehicle, with the shooting under investigation by the homicide division.
At least 12 children between the ages of two and 16 were shot and killed in St Louis between April and August 2019.
