A 3-year-old boy accidentally shot and wounded himself in Nashville on Tuesday, according to officials.
The boy shot himself in the wrist on Tuesday night inside an apartment complex in on Glastonbury road, police said in a release. The injuries he sustained are non-life threatening, police said.
Metro Nashville Police officials stated that 24-year-old Tevin Tyson, a security guard with a handgun permit, told detectives his son, Treyvon, shot himself after they got home.
According to Tyson, they both placed their backpacks on the floor of their apartment. Tyson’s backpack contained a .40 caliber semi-automatic pistol. According to police, he told his son to retrieve clothing from the child’s backpack and turned away.
Then, he heard a gunshot, police said.
“Tyson loaded Treyvon into his vehicle and was taking him to a hospital when he saw a Metro police officer on Briley Parkway at the I-24 interchange and asked for help. An ambulance was called and Treyvon was transported to Vanderbilt,” a release from Metro Nashville Police read.
The shooting is currently under investigation.
Officials told News10 that the father is a security guard who patrols apartment complexes, and his job stipulates that he provide his own gun.
According to gun safety website Everytownresearch.org, between 2007 and 2011, an average of 62 children under the age of 14 were accidentally shot and killed each year.
