“Let me wake up out of this nightmare:”

MILWAUKEE -- Loved ones on Wednesday evening, April 27th gathered in Milwaukee to remember a young mother who was shot and killed by her own two-year-old son, whom officials said got hold of a gun and fired from the backseat of a vehicle his mother was driving on Highway 175 -- shooting his mother in the back, and fatally wounding her.

26-year-old Patrice Price was killed in the incident

"Devastated. Today is kind of unreal," Curtis Sloan said.

Sloan is Price's ex-boyfriend, and the father of one of her children. He was one of many who gathered near 37th and Custer in Milwaukee to remember Price.

"Just kind of in the state of 'let me wake up out of this nightmare,'" Sloan said.

The nightmare began on Tuesday morning, around 10:30 a.m.

Investigators say Price's two-and-a-half-year-old son was able to get hold of a gun that apparently slid from under the driver's seat of the vehicle Price was driving. Price's son fired into his mother's back.

The gun reportedly belonged to Price's boyfriend, who works at a security guard.

According to the Milwaukee County Sheriff's Office, deputies found a security officer’s gun belt, belonging to Patrice Price's boyfriend, on the floor of the front passenger seat.  The 40-caliber firearm was found on the floor of the back seat behind the driver’s seat.

Price's one-year-old child and Price's mother were in the front seat of the vehicle. They were not hurt.

Sloan had to break the news of his mother's loss to their seven-year-old daughter.

"What do you say? It's just been really, really, really hard to look at her and to see that even when she smiles, she's hurting," Sloan said.

Patrice Price's father, Andre Price told FOX6 News he is holding onto memories of his daughter.

"That smile, the generosity she has in her heart..." Andre Price said.

"With God and Patrice's legacy and the love that she had for everyone, she will live on through all of us and we'll make sure of that," Sloan said.

Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett said the entire city was shocked by this incident.

"Any time you have a two or three-year-old with a gun and something like this happens, I think everyone`s heart is broken," Barrett said.