Articles labeled: criminal neglect

We tend to agree that if you leave a loaded handgun where a young child can get it, that certainly constitutes “child neglect”.

[Tracey] DeCarr said she kept the handgun in her nightstand to protect herself and her son.

“He goes through my stuff all the time in the morning, like a normal child, and he found that,” DeCarr said. “He took it back to his room because he knew he was not supposed to be playing with that and that’s where it happened, in his bedroom.”

DeCarr insisted the gun was not loaded.

Volusia County Sheriff’s Department spokesperson Brandon Haught said there was a bullet in the chamber and the toddler may have been trying to drop another bullet down the gun’s muzzle.

“It definitely could have been a whole lot worse,” Haught said. “This child was just playing with a gun, just pointing it in the wrong direction. It could have been a whole lot worse.”