A two-year-old boy shot his father dead with an unsecured gun at the family home in the United States. The accident happened before the eyes of his five-year-old brother, who subsequently became the investigators’ most important witness.
According to Sheriff John Mina, the officials who called the emergency services at the Orlando crime scene initially assumed that the 26-year-old father had committed suicide. However, a gunshot wound in the man’s back was found in the hospital, which did not support this thesis. The investigations at the crime scene also confirmed the description of the five-year-old, according to which his little brother triggered the gun. In addition to the two boys and a five-month-old baby, the children’s mother was also at home at the time. When the Orange County Police Department arrived, she was attempting to resuscitate her husband.
“The firearm was not properly locked away,” Mina said at a news conference. “In fact, she was easily accessible, even for a two-year-old, and the result is a tragedy that no one in our community can really fathom.”
According to court documents, the gun was in a bag that the father left on the ground. The toddler found her and shot the 26-year-old, who was playing a computer game, in the back.
The incident happened on May 26, but due to the difficult investigation, the police only now informed the public. Accordingly, both parents were subject to probation conditions for child neglect and drug offenses. The mother was arrested and now has to answer for negligent homicide, illegal possession of a weapon and violating the terms of probation, among other things.
“Now these young children have effectively lost both their parents,” Mina said. “Their father is dead, their mother is in prison. And a young child must grow up knowing that they shot their father. These tragedies are 100 percent preventable .”
Such tragedies happen regularly in the United States. In August 2021, for example, a two-year-old child found a gun in a child’s backpack and shot his mother in the head during a Zoom meeting.
