A 2-year-old boy died last month after an accidental shooting while he was in the same room as his mother at an Oak Cliff home.
Officers arrested a 25-year-old man May 8 after he allegedly fled the home in the 1700 block of Hemphill Drive where the shooting took place on April 23, Dallas police said in a news release. The man is accused of bringing a stolen gun into the home, according to his arrest warrant affidavit.
The man did not live in the home but often stayed over and slept in a back bedroom with the child and the child’s mother, according to the affidavit.
The child was sitting on the floor playing with his toys prior to the shooting, the child’s mother told police in an interview. She was sitting on the bed scrolling on her phone, and the man was in the bathroom when she told police she heard a gunshot, according to the affidavit.
The mother said she then saw the child on the floor bleeding with a gun next to him. The mother picked up the child and ran into the kitchen. The man then took the child from her and ran outside alongside the mother and another woman in the house, according to the affidavit.
After 911 was called, the man said, “I’m fixing to go, I’m going to jail,” the mother said during her interview with police. Once the man heard sirens, he fled, she said.
The gun found in the home was stolen on April 8 during the burglary of a vehicle, police said in the affidavit. Police found the gun in a different room than the one the boy was shot in, according to the affidavit.
The child’s mother and the other woman told police they didn’t know a gun was in the home. The mother told police in later interviews she noticed a “clip of a handgun” in the man’s backpack weeks before the shooting and saw the man’s backpack on the floor of the room the day of the shooting, according to the affidavit. She also told police she had seen the man holding a gun on social media.
The man was arrested on charges including unlawful possession of a firearm by a felon and making a firearm accessible to a child, causing death or serious bodily injury.
As of Monday, the man is being held at the Dallas County jail with bail set at $50,000. It is unclear if he has legal representation.