Police claimed an 8-year-old lad died after unintentionally shooting himself with a loaded revolver left in a car while his mother was inside a Utah convenience store.
About 7:40 p.m. Monday in Lehi, a city roughly 30 miles south of Salt Lake City, the lad was alone in the car when he shot himself in the head; Jeanteil Livingston of the Lehi City Police Department confirmed to CBS News. Police reported that the event happened in a car parked in a Maverick petrol station’s lot.
The lad arrived at a nearby hospital in a very critical state. Police reported that he died Tuesday morning following an airlifted trip to a hospital up north.
Police said in a statement that the shooting looked to be “unintentional and self-inflicted.”
Livingston claimed the gun was under a seat in the car. She claimed, investigators do not know whether safety was ever on.
Doug Shields reported hearing the gunshot and then a woman screaming while he was filling his car with gas. He headed to the vehicle where everything had occurred. He told KSL and KUTV he heard the mother claim the lad discovered the rifle under the seat.
Monday’s shooting occurred less than two weeks following the death of a five-year-old Utah child who unintentionally shot himself with a firearm at his Santaquin residence, some 65 miles south of Salt Lake City.
The Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence claims Utah lacks legislation punishing someone for neglecting to lock an unattended weapon and leaving it within reach of an unsupervised youngster. Furthermore not required by the law are unattended weapons maintained in a specific manner or a locking mechanism sold alongside a weapon.
As of as now, Livingston reported, no charges are pending against the Lehi boy’s mother. Investigating the shooting is still in progress. After their son shot himself in the hand last week, Michigan police punished the parents of a 9-year-old for breaking the state’s safe storage legislation.
Monday was the death of a 4-year-old girl in St. Louis from a gunshot wound sustained in a house with three other children under the age of 10 and no adults present. Who was handling the gun at the time of the incident is a police mystery.