Boy, 4, kills himself with mother's gun
A four-year-old boy died after he was shot in the head with a semi-automatic pistol, authorities in the United States said.
Sheriff’s investigators in Florida were still trying to determine today if charges are warranted after Jovan Mitchell fatally shot himself in the head with a handgun he found in his mother’s apartment.
Jovan was playing with his 5-year-old cousin on Sunday morning when the gun went off , said JD Callaway, spokesman for the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office, near Tampa.
The cousin, Lyndon Jenkins, went to another room of the apartment and told Jovan’s mother, 18-year-old Charvanette Mitchell, who called police.
The boy was dead by the time authorities arrived. Investigators have not said where Jovan found the gun or who fired it. Family members said he got the gun from a wardrobe.
Investigators are still trying to determine who owned the gun and how the child got access to it, sheriff’s spokeswoman Debbie Carter said.
Under Florida law, anyone who stores a loaded gun around children must keep the firearm in a locked box, or somewhere secure from the child’s reach.
