TENNESSEE (WASHINGTON POST) - Police arrested a Tennessee man after a three-year-old child allegedly used his gun to fatally shoot his one-year-old daughter.
Details were not immediately clear. The shooting took place on Friday morning in southeast Memphis, WMCA reported.
Shawn Moore, 25, was at the apartment of the mother of his one-year-old daughter, Robin Keefer.
Moore helped her put the infant to sleep, then allegedly left a handgun within reach of the bed. He forgot about it and left the room, police said.
Keefer's three-year-old sibling allegedly found the gun, picked it up and shot the infant.
Unidentified witnesses heard the gunshots and found the child wounded, the Associated Press reported. The three-year-old's relationship with Moore is also unclear.
Moore then allegedly grabbed the gun and fled the scene.
Police later found Robin Keefer lying in the bedroom with an apparent gunshot wound to the head. She was rushed to the Le Bonheur Children's Hospital, where she later died.
Moore turned himself into police later that evening. He was booked into Shelby County Jail at around 11pm local time on Friday (Nov 10), according to online records.
"It was determined that Robin Keefer was actually shot by her three-year-old sibling with Moore's firearm," police told the Commercial Appeal.
On Saturday, police charged Moore with criminally negligent homicide, being a convicted felon with a handgun and tampering with evidence. Moore was previously charged with domestic assault in both 2014 and 2015, but both cases were dismissed for lack of prosecution, the Commercial Appeal reported.
Keefer's family was still reeling from her sudden death over the weekend.
"She was a sweet baby," her aunt Wanda Keefer told WREG. "She was always smiling. Never cried too much unless she was hungry."
"My heart just dropped," Wanda Keefer told the Commercial Appeal. "I just fell on the table. My heart just dropped."
Moore's arraignment is scheduled for Monday morning.
A recent study published in the journal Pediatrics found that 5,790 children, on average, receive medical treatment in an emergency room from a gun-related injury each year. About 21 per cent of those injuries are unintentional.
From 2012 to 2014, an average of 1,297 died each year from gun-related injuries, the study found.
