‘He’s just a baby’: Fight over cellphone leads to 4-year old’s death, man’s arrest
It was a Sunday afternoon and Rodriquez Ferguson was playing on the front porch of his grandmother’s house.
A wide-eyed 4-year-old who loved race cars and Ninja Turtles, Rodriquez was enjoying the last hours of the weekend among the leafy trees in his family’s Birmingham, Alabama neighborhood. But before 2:30 p.m., a man arrived at the house with a gun.
He began arguing with other adults in the house over a cellphone that his and their children were reportedly fighting over, according to Birmingham police.
Then he began to fire his weapon.
Rodriquez was fatally struck in the head by the time police officers arrived at the house on Avenue Q, according to police. He died shortly after arriving at the Children’s Hospital.
"I begged him three times not to shoot," Rodriquez's grandmother Quisha Ferguson told AL.com Monday, telling them Rodriguez was “just a baby.”
"Ain't nobody been to sleep," Ferguson added. "I just want justice."
Police arrested Joseph Lewis for Rodriquez’s murder, the Birmingham Police Department announced Tuesday afternoon. Lewis reportedly cursed when officers showed up at his door to arrest him but did not resist being taken into custody, AL.com reporter Ivana Hrynkiw tweeted.
In a press conference held after the arrest, Birmingham Mayor William Bell called the argument that sparked the fight “stupid.”
“Our hearts bleed for this child,” he also said.
Family members described Rodriquez to AL.com as popular and cheerful, particularly at the Jefferson County Committee for Economic Opportunity, where he was a Head Start student. A photo of Rodriquez posted by WBRC showed the 4-year-old boy smiling in front of a waterfall backdrop and wearing a brightly checkered blue and orange shirt.
“How many life moments in this child's life were lost tonight? You can't count the number,” Birmingham Police Sgt. Bryan Shelton told AL.com shortly after the shooting. “Birthdays, graduations, first this or that, none will be seen by this mother or the family. Precious moments lost over a cellphone. You can't make sense of that.”
At a vigil Monday night for Rodriquez, grandfather James Thomas held metallic balloons shaped like the letter “R,” for his slain grandson’s first name, and like the number “4,” for the age at which he died, AL.com reported.
This story was originally published September 27, 2016 at 1:32 PM with the headline "‘He’s just a baby’: Fight over cellphone leads to 4-year old’s death, man’s arrest."