BRUNSWICK, Ga. – The Brunswick Police Department and city manager Bill Weeks are meeting this morning at 11 a.m for a press conference to discuss the shooting that left a toddler dead.
Police with automatic weapons went door-to-door in a 100-block are of Brunswick Thursday, searching for suspects after a young gunman opened fire on the infant as his mother pushed him in his stroller.
Brunswick Police Chief Tobe Green said the suspects in the killing of the 13-month-old boy and wounding of his mother are thought to be between 10 and 15 years old.
IMAGES: Brunswick crime scene, manhunt
Police said they had no motive in the shootings that occurred around 9:15 a.m. Thursday near the intersection of London and Ellis streets in the city's South End neighborhood.
Brunswick Police spokesman Todd Rhodes says the mother suffered non-life threatening injuries and was in stable condition at the Brunswick campus of the Southeast Georgia Health System.
The mother, the only witness to the shooting, said she was confronted by two boys. She described the shooter as a black male between 13 and 15 year old wearing a long sleeve red shirt, 5-feet 7-inches to 5-feet 9-inches tall, with curly hair last seen running east on London Street. Police said he was with a second boy, shorter and wearing a black shirt and who looked to be a couple of years younger.
"She is cooperating as fully as she can possibly cooperate, providing the best information that she has," said Thompson. "Given what she has gone through. She is, for right now, the only eyewitness we have."
Brunswick police are offering a $10,000 reward for "information leading to the arrest and conviction of the persons responsible for this horrific act."
"Mom, dad, grandma, grandpa, brother, sister, if you know something, bring young people in or call in the information," said Brunswick Mayor Bryan Thompson. "We need info. They will be caught, but we need help to get them off the street, and the help they need also."
Anyone with any information about the shooting is asked to call Brunswick Police Department's Silent Witness line at 912-267-5516 or the Glynn County Police Department's Silent Witness line at 912-264-1333. Information can also be emailed to bpdtips@brunswickpolice.org.
Community members spent Thursday evening in prayer. Whether hands lifted to heaven or on their face in humility, their request is for their community and the families affected Thursday.
Church members offered information to the God they believe knows all, sees all and can do all they ask.
"In this instance, as a parent myself, I ask God to give the mother peace, give the family strength, to help through this, a very difficult time," said Dee Rogers.
"Really, the issue is children," said Eddie. "We're worried about everything else, wars, but we're not really worried about what's going on at home."
"I will also pray for the families of the children that committed the crime, because that's hard as a parent," said Rogers. "You raised someone that would do something like this."
"You have child infancy, hasn't a chance to live life and this happens," continued Rogers. "Then, you have children perpetrating the crime."
Investigators say they have searched all day and into the night, in search of the people identified as the shooter.
In urging the community to help solve this case, Thompson said anyone who has information on the suspect and doesn't share it with police, in his mind, he considers them as guilty as the shooter, or shooters.
"If they have info, not giving info, they're complicit in this murder also," said Thompson. "Their finger on the trigger, as surely as shooter's finger on the trigger of the gun.
Thompson said he doesn't sense any discouragement.
"Right now, there's a mixture of exhaustion and hope," said Thompson. "We know we're going to catch the suspects, just a matter of time. We hope sooner than later."