MOUNT MORRIS TOWNSHIP, Mich. -- The 6-year-old boy who fatally shot a fellow first-grader lived in a "flophouse" and used a stolen handgun he found in a bedroom there, the prosecutor said Wednesday.
Genesee County Prosecutor Arthur Busch said the home was frequented by strangers."This boy comes from a very troubled home," Busch said on NBC's "Today" show. "He is really a victim of a drug culture and a house that's really in chaos."
Investigators searched the home Tuesday. "There certainly were drugs in the home," Busch told ABC's "Good Morning America."
Kayla Rolland, also 6, died a half-hour after she was shot in the neck at Buell Elementary School on Tuesday morning. Busch said there may have been "some sort of scuffle or quarrel on the playground" between the two a day earlier in which one child had slapped the other.
The boy pulled the .32-caliber handgun from his pants, aimed it at another classmate and then turned it on the little girl, Busch said.
"His actions were naughty, in his mindset," he said. "What he understood he did is another matter. . . .
"He is a victim in many ways," Busch said. "It is very sad, we need to put our arms around him and love him."
The boy, whose name was not released, was questioned and released. Busch said the boy was staying with
a relative, and police said he would be put in state custody.
The boy lived with his mother, a man described as an uncle and a younger sibling, Busch said. The boy's father is in the county jail, but Busch said he didn't know why.
"There were people coming and going from this house," he said. When police went to the house "there were several people just hanging out. I call it a 'flophouse.' "
State law allows for adult prosecution of young offenders, but the prosecutor said he thinks charges are unlikely in this case.
"You have to be old enough to form criminal intent to commit the crime of murder," Busch said Tuesday. "The common law of our country says that a child under the age of 7 is not criminally responsible -- cannot be convicted of a felony."
However, Busch said someone could face charges for enabling the boy to get the gun, which officials said had been reported stolen in December. Investigators also found a stolen 12-gauge shotgun and other evidence in the home, the prosecutor said.
"We continue to try to find the person who made it possible to get that gun to begin with," Busch said.
Classes were canceled at the school Wednesday.
At the time of the shooting, most of the 22 students in the classroom had filed into a hallway to head to the library, and just five students remained inside. Busch said the teacher was standing in the doorway when the boy fired the only bullet in the gun.
A girl who identified herself as a classmate, said Kayla had yelled at the boy because he spit on her desk and stood on it.