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ST. LOUIS (AP) — An 8-year-old boy who stepped outside to try to catch an insect in a jar was killed in a hail of gunfire, and his adult cousin was wounded.
It was not immediately clear whether Craig Collins Jr. and his 25-year-old cousin Freddie Pitts were the targets of the shooting or were caught in crossfire. Police said they believe there was more than one gunman. Investigators said they did not know the motive for the shooting Wednesday. But relatives said they believed the shooting was retaliation for their efforts to report drug dealers in the neighborhood.
The cousins were hit just after leaving their grandmother's house in hopes of catching a praying mantis, family members said. Pitts was shot in the mouth, they said.
They said they had called police on recent nights to report gunfire, and an aunt, Charlotte Webb, said the family had been threatened as recently as Wednesday afternoon. "They said we were going to come back here and do something," she said. | 
