ATLANTA — A 16-year-old boy is dead after police say he was mistaken for a burglar inside his own home in southeast Atlanta.

What’s Happening: Officers say the shooting happened Monday morning at a house on Mulberry Row in the Glenrose Heights neighborhood.

Investigators believe the teenager was coming in through the back door when someone inside thought he was breaking in and opened fire. Police say the shooter may have been the boyfriend of the boy’s mother.

Authorities say the man left the home after the gunfire. Detectives are still searching for him.

The teenager’s name has not been released.

Key Statistics on Firearms in the Home

  • More Risks Than Defense
    Research dating back to the late 1990s found that for every self-defense shooting in a home, there were four unintentional shootings, seven criminal assaults or homicides, and eleven suicides linked to guns in that same setting.
  • Unintentional Shootings Are Common at Home
    From 2003 to 2021, 85% of accidental shootings involving children occurred in a home or apartment, and over half of those were in the victim’s own residence. In 2022, 78.3% of the 530 recorded unintentional shooting deaths happened in private residences—and more than half of those occurred in the victims’ own homes.
  • Children Bear the Brunt
    Between 2015 and 2021, 3,498 Americans died from unintentional gun injuries; 713 of them were children under 18.
  • No Protective Effect Found
    A Stanford-led study found no evidence that having a handgun in the home offered protection. Instead, it increased risk of assault and homicide.