Aiden Leos: 6-year-old boy shot dead in California ‘road rage’ after mother ‘flipped off’ another driver
Grieving family ask for people to come forward with information about people who shot six year old boy dead in an ‘isolated road rage incident’
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A family in California have appealed for anyone with information about the fatal shooting of a six-year-old boy to come forward.
Aiden Leos was killed on Friday morning in what authorities believe was incited by road rage as he was being driven by his mother to school. A GoFundMe was established, which has raised over $130,000 for the family.
They spoke at a press conference asking for anyone who knows to come forward. His sister emotionally pleaded for people to come forward.
“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.” he said to reporters. She spoke about her mother having “to hold her little boy as he died so she is very distraught right now.”
Aiden’s uncle John Cloonan also spoke to the media, saying “You can tell it was a cowardly way of doing it because they shot her in the back pretty much”.
“You have no idea what you took from us today. You took her son away, her boy. This boy was full of love and joy and laughter.” he said.
“I hope someone knows something and that whoever did this, I hope you can see what you’ve done to this family. Not that it matters much now because my nephew is dead. We’re never going to be full again. He continued.
He described how Ms Cloonan “was merging to the right side to get away from the 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.”
The tragic killing happened at roughly 8.10 am while Aiden’s mother Joanna Cloonan was driving him to his kindergarten class at Calvary Chapel Yorba Linda. Ms Cloonan gestured to a driver who cut her off, as she veered her body to the right, a gunman, believed to be a passenger in the other car, shot a bullet into the car, which hit Aiden.
“Mommy, my tummy hurts,” Aiden is reported to have said.
After pulling the car over, Ms Cloonan pulled him out the car and a police officer, not on duty, performed CPR on the boy, until an ambulance arrived. Aiden was declared dead at Orange County Hospital
Police are searching for the suspects, who they believe to be a man, the shooter and woman, the driver of the white Volkswagen.
A spokesperson for California Highway Patrol told the Orange County Register that they were working day and night to find them, and seeking dashcam footage of passing cars.
The names of the suspects have not been released, and the police are describing it as “an isolated road rage incident.”