3-Year-Old Arizona Boy Accidentally Shoots Himself Dead At Home, Teen Relative, Girlfriend Arrested

A man and his girlfriend were arrested for child abuse after a 3-year-old boy died due to a gunshot wound in a home in Tucson, Arizona.

Officers from the Tucson Police Department, after receiving a report of a shooting, responded to a home on the 800 block of West Roger Road on Tuesday (May 5) afternoon.

The officers found the boy, identified as Bryson Skinner, with a gunshot wound. Using their Individual First Aid Kits (IFAK), the officers immediately gave the child first aid before the paramedics from the Tucson Fire Department arrived. He was then transported to Banner University Medical Center with life-threatening injuries. The boy succumbed to his injuries at the hospital.

According to police, the child’s died after he accidentally shot himself with a handgun that he found in the house.

“Investigators believe the shooting appears to be accidental and self-inflicted,” a Facebook statement from the TPD read.

However, the detectives from the child physical abuse and homicide units conducted a detailed investigation and interviewed several people.

Following the investigation, the officers, suspecting an abuse, narrowed down on two people. A family member of the victim, identified as 19-year-old William Skinner, and his girlfriend, 22-year-old Valerie Faidley, were taken into custody. However, the details of the abuse were unclear.

A search warrant was issued to the house where the incident took place. Both Skinner and Faidley were arrested and charged with felony child abuse. They were later booked into the Pima County Jail.

It was an ongoing investigation and no additional details were available at the moment.

The cases of children getting hold of firearms and committing or falling prey for fatal accidents have been reported earlier too. In a similar incident that was reported last month in Georgia, a 2-year-old boy shot and killed his father when he accidentally triggered a gun he was playing with. The father, identified as 28-year-old Jason Fowler, was shot in the back while he was on the phone talking to someone. The toddler’s mother had left to a grocery store asking Fowler to take care of the child when the shocking incident took place.