A two-year-old boy accidentally killed his father in Florida by shooting him with a gun loaded that their parents had left unattended, local authorities reported Monday.
(Also read: The shootings in the United States do not stop: five dead this weekend)
On May 26, police responded to the victim’s residence near Orlando, central Florida, after receiving an emergency call. Upon arrival, officers found a woman, Marie Ayala, performing heart massage on her husband, Reggie Mabry, who had been shot.
The 26-year-old man died shortly afterward at the hospital, and police at first thought he had killed himself, Orange County Sheriff John Mina told a news conference.
But the oldest of the couple’s three children, a five-year-old boyHe informed deputies that it was his two-year-old brother who had shot their father in the back, the sheriff added.
Hundreds of people have protested to call for more gun regulation in the US.
The little boy found the gun in a bag that Mabry had left on the floor and shot his father while he was playing a video game on a computeraccording to court documents.
The whole family -the parents, the two children and a five-month-old girl- was in the only bedroom of the house when the events occurred.
Mabry and Ayala were on probation after committing child neglect and narcotics charges, Sheriff Mina said. After the death of her husband, police arrested Ayala, 28, for involuntary manslaughterpossession of a firearm by a convicted felon, and violation of probation.
(You may be interested in: Migration crisis, the central issue in a tarnished Summit of the Americas)
Now these children have lost both of their parents. His father is dead. His mother is in jail. And a boy has to live knowing that he shot his father
“Gun owners who don’t properly secure their guns are a fraction of a second away from one of these tragedies occurring in their homes,” Mina said.
“Now these children have lost both of their parents. Their father is dead. Their mother is in jail. And a boy has to live knowing that he shot his father,” he added.
The events were revealed in the midst of the debate on gun control in the United States, following a series of shootings, including the one that left 19 children dead in a Texas school on May 24.
INTERNATIONAL WRITING
*With information from AFP
More world news
– Trump campaign denies link with former adviser to Rodolfo Hernández
– Dominican minister took a ‘selfie’ with his murderer days before he died
– Boris Johnson is saved from being removed from office after motion of censure
#Florida #twoyearold #boy #accidentally #shot #father #dead