Authorities claimed a 2-year-old High Point, North Carolina, boy died Saturday after he shot himself while playing with a handgun.
Evidence at the scene indicated that Benson Jones was handling a Taurus .380 semiautomatic pistol when it went off. Police were called to the High Point home at 4:30 pm after the toddler reportedly shot himself in the head. Jones was taken to a nearby hospital where he died hours later, the Greensboro News & Record reported.
Accidentally shot to death this weekend: 8yo Kade Minor of Ochelata, OK; 2yo Benson Jones of High Point, NC. #GunFAIL #WeekendUSA pic.twitter.com/a8TOYSEEpn
— David Waldman (@KagroX) March 27, 2017
“We’ve got to wait for gunshot residue (test results), but everything would tend to indicate the child got a gun and played with it and shot himself,” Guilford County Assistant District Attorney Walt Jones said, according to The Courier-Tribune. “It’s a small pistol like you keep in a lady’s purse or somebody’s pocket. It’s not a big gun at all.”
WXII reported that an adult caregiver was with the child at the time of the shooting. The child’s father was on the porch when the gun went off.
Neighbor Benson Johnson told WGHP that Saturday afternoon was the first time he saw Benson and his father. Johnson said the father asked him if he had any extra toys for his son to play with moments before the tot was shot.
“He said, ‘thank you for the toys,’ and the dad was just sitting there with his back kind of turned to us and just texting on his phone… and it wasn’t 10 minutes later we heard a pop,” Johnson told the station. “When the baby fell the daddy jumped up and said, ‘My baby just shot himself’ and that’s when San and I rushed over to the yard to see what we could do to help you know.”
High Point police have made no arrests and aren’t seeking any suspects. Jones said the next step in their investigation is figuring out who owns the gun and how a 2-year-old got a hold of it.
[Featured Image: Facebook]
