Published on August 15, 2023 at 12:29 pm
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A 6-year-old boy died Monday after a gun went off while an older child held it, according to the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office.
Police said the 6-year-old was shot in the head in a home on Shady Pines Street South, just east of Blanding Boulevard.
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A 9-year-old child was handling a gun just before 3 p.m. when it went off once, police said. Investigators did not say how the victim was related to the other child.
“The two juveniles were located inside the residence in the care of an adult,” Assistant Chief J.D. Stronko said. “One of the juveniles was able to obtain a firearm and fired a single shot, striking the victim. … There is no indication of criminal violence.”
Police said detectives questioned the adult Monday night. Stronko said investigators are trying to find out how the older child got the weapon and whether it had stored securely.
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An estimated 4.6 million children live with unlocked, loaded guns, according to HealthyKids dot org. Between 2015 and 2022, there were more than 2,800 unintentional shootings by children age 17 and younger, resulting in nearly 1,100 deaths, the nonprofit group reports.
The Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office has investigated similar cases of young people dying while handling firearms in recent years.
A Jacksonville mother went on trial Tuesday on a manslaughter charge in the shooting death of her 14-year-old daughter on Jan. 20, 2021. Amanda Guthrie told police her daughter, Ayva Guthrie, picked up a gun from a TV in their Arlington home and began to play with it before handing it over. That is when the gun discharged. The teen died after being rushed to a hospital.
On May 3, 2022, a 3-year-old boy died after he found a gun in his uncle’s room after wandering away from a grandmother and great-aunt who had been babysitting him, a Florida Department of Children and Families investigation shows. The uncle told investigators he had found the gun and put it in a dresser, the report said,.
A 6-year-old boy died June 15, 2021, after he accidentally shot himself in the head while playing with a weapon a teen had brought to the home while visiting the family, DCF reported. And on Nov. 7 of that year, a 6-year-old girl died when she shot herself in the head while playing with her mother’s gun, DCF reported.
A statewide record of child deaths in Florida, maintained by DCF, shows three other accidental shootings so far this year:
- Feb. 15: A 3-year-old child in Volusia County died after accidentally shooting himself when he got his hands on a weapon.
- March 9: A 4-year-old boy in Orange County died after he picked up a weapon and shot himself in the head while visiting with his father.
- May 27: A 2-year-old girl in Broward County died after she was playing with a loaded weapon and it went off.
