HARTFORD — Hartford Police say a 3-year-old is recovering at the hospital from a gunshot. It happened inside of a home on East Raymond Street.
Around 10:30 a.m., the boy was brought into St. Francis Hospital by his parents for a wound from a gun.
Police said the boy was shot in the shoulder, but the wound wasn’t life-threatening. The boy is expected to survive.
The child was injured after he got ahold of their parent’s gun. Police said the father did have a safe where the gun was stored.
As the father was changing in his home, he placed the gun on the bed when the boy climbed up and accidentally pulled the trigger.
“The father is a legal gun owner. He has a safe. He stores his gun in his safe. The detectives have gone and confirmed this. He was in the process of changing with his firearm. He had put his firearm down on the bed when this occurred. The child was in the room when he had grabbed the gun while it was on the bed, pulled the trigger at the same time, shooting himself,” said Deputy Chief Brian Foley of the Hartford Police Department.
The police investigation is preliminary, circumstances surrounding the incident aren’t clear. Criminal charges maybe applied.
Police say it is incidents like these where they encourage everyone to take advantage of the safe storage locks they offer during the gun buyback events.