The boy is in critical condition.
A three-year-old boy in New Jersey accidentally shot himself with a firearm. When police arrived at the scene of the shooting at around 5:47 p.m. local time on August 15, they discovered the boy and two other children in a house on Wainwright Street, according to Fritz Frage, director of Newark Public Safety. The boy was taken to University Hospital for treatment and is currently in critical condition.
According to a report in PeoplePolice said the incident was under investigation. “A firearm was recovered at the scene. The shooting appears to be accidental and self-inflicted. This incident remains under investigation. No further information is available,” they added.
Specifically, the three-year-old’s older brother was seen asking people for help at a local store, according to surveillance camera footage. The store manager recalled that the boy was covered in blood and reported that his brother could not breathe. A clerk at the store went to the boy’s home and found the younger one in a pool of blood. He told the store manager, “Boss, there’s a little boy rolling around in blood,” before the store manager called 911.
“I’m scared myself because we were here, but we didn’t know what was going on, but we saw all the police and everything,” said Newark resident Edith Frinpong, a mother of two.
She added: “We should be careful to keep guns in our homes… in a safe place.”
The Newark Department of Public Safety later reached out to gun owners on Facebook, urging them to “be mindful of the safety of their guns and take extra precautions when storing firearms.” They urged them to keep guns “unloaded and locked,” store ammunition “separate from the gun,” and consider using a “gun lock.” They also urged residents to hide keys or passwords to gun storage locations.
“You can never be too careful about where and how to secure a firearm, especially in private homes or other locations where children may be present,” the caption said.
The incident comes nearly a year after a 3-year-old girl accidentally shot her sister in Harris County, Texas, local news station KTVB7 reported. Sheriff Ed Gonzales posted about the incident and said the 4-year-old died at the scene. The station quoted him as saying that five adults were in an apartment on Bammel North Houston Road near Tomball Parkway where the incident occurred. They were all family and friends, Mr. Gonzales added. According to law enforcement, the girl lived in the apartment with her parents.
The girls’ parents left them alone in a room, and there the 3-year-old found a loaded gun, according to the sheriff’s office. The toddler fired a single shot that killed her older sister, the official added.
