Boy, 14, Killed as Friends Play With Gun : Sylmar: Youth dies after cutting class with schoolmates. Detectives are treating the shooting as an accident.

Skipping school turned deadly for a group of Sylmar High School students Friday when a pistol they were playing with discharged, killing a 14-year-old, authorities said.

The students, ages 14 to 16, decided to cut classes Friday morning and went to the home of one of the youths, a gated condominium in the 14200 block of Foothill Boulevard, said Los Angeles Police Lt. Joe Garcia.

About 8:40 a.m. the group was doing “the usual teen-age stuff,” Garcia said, when the boy who lives in the condominium started showing his friends a gun.

The gun went off, hitting the 14-year-old in the head, Garcia said.

The youth, whose name was withheld pending notification of next of kin, crumpled to the ground, dead, and his friends dashed out of the condominium--all but the one who shot him, who called an ambulance, Garcia said.

As of Friday evening, detectives were treating the case as an accidental shooting. There was no evidence of drinking or drug use, Detective Frank Bishop said.

Bishop said investigators still did not know who owned the weapon that caused the youth’s death. “There are a lot of possibilities, but we want to wait until we get all the information before we make a decision,” Bishop said.

“You look at it and you realize what a tragedy it is, when somebody gets their hands on a gun and accidents happen,” Bishop said. “Kids are pretty industrious--they usually find what they’re looking for.

“It’s the risk you take when you own a gun.”