A one-year-old girl has been shot dead by an eight-year-old boy who found his father’s gun at a Florida motel.
Escambia County Sheriff Chip Simmons said the shooting happened on Sunday and that the girl’s two-year-old sister had also been injured in the incident.
Mr Simmons said the boy’s father had left the gun in his Pensacola motel room wardrobe.
After he left the room, his son found it and fired a round that passed through and killed the infant and struck the toddler.
The father was staying at the motel with a girlfriend, who was asleep at the time, Mr Simmons said.
The girls killed and wounded were her children, he said.
The toddler is expected to recover.
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The father was arrested on charges of being a convicted felon in possession of a firearm, tampering with evidence, culpable negligence and failure to safely store a firearm, the sheriff said.
There were at least 392 unintentional shootings by children younger than 18 last year, with 163 deaths, according to the advocacy group Everytown for Gun Safety, which tracks cases.
