Jayquann McConnico today admitted he left a loaded gun in his bedroom that a 7-year-old relative used to kill his brother Liquarry last summer, the Suffolk County DA's office reports.

McConnico, himself only 16, was committed to DYS until he turns 21. He was also sentenced to four to six years in prison for manslaughter and 2 1/2 years in jail for lying to police. However, Boston Juvenile Court Judge Stephen Limon suspended those sentences for nine years.

Liquarry's mother, Lakeisha Gadson, is scheduled for trial in April on charges of involuntary manslaughter, wantonly and recklessly permitting substantial bodilty injury to a child, child endangerment, unlawful possession of a firearm, improper storage of a firearm, and misleading a police officer.

Prosecutors McConnico stored a 9-mm Norinco semi-automatic handgun with live ammunition in the unlocked top drawer of a small dresser in McConnico's bedroom at 266 Seaver St. They alleged that Liquarry routinely played in the room - and that it was this gun that the boy and his cousin were playing with when it went off around 11 p.m. on June 24, 2007.

This Sunday, there's going to be a "Man Up for Liquarry Jefferson Accountability March" from Grove Hall to City Hall, to try to get black men to take more responsibility for stopping violence in inner-city Boston (starts at 11 a.m.; it's named for the little boy shot by a cousin with an illegal gun a family member left lying around).

I didn't read about it in the Globe or the Herald, of course. Instead, I heard about it this morning on Touch FM, the pirate radio station a toothless FCC can't seem to shut down.

UPDATE: Gadson acquitted on the most serious charges.

Lakeisha Gadson, and her son, Jayquan McConnico, 16, were formally charged today with involuntary manslaughter - and lying to investigators about how Liquarry Jefferson, 8, died.

Good, sad, frustrating story in the Globe today that looks at the poor kid's short life in an awful family and environment in Grove Hall, despite some fairly intensive - and expensive - efforts by social workers to help.

... In Grove Hall, police have said that 2.4 percent of the area's 19,000 residents cause most of the serious crime. Many of those people, police say, are related. ...

Dremari writes that he knew the little boy shot to death last night, allegedly by his 7-year-old cousin:

It hurts my heart to hear that because I witnessed how good of a kid Laquarrie was. My little sister attended school with him and played with him after school. I was playing basketball with him one day. He did not have a good shot because of his size so i lifted him up so he could shoot the ball. ...