A segment from the American reality police show, On Patrol: Live, shows security camera footage of a toddler in a diaper playing with a handgun outside an apartment.
The incident occurred in Beech Grove, Indiana, outside the boy’s father’s apartment on Saturday.
The live feed shows the toddler wandering around the stairwell landing outside the apartment while waving the gun, pointing it at doors, down the stairs, and towards himself.
The audio of the footage also captures clicking noises that seem to indicate the child repeatedly pulling the trigger.
On Patrol: Live host Sean Larkin said ‘The officers [were saying] that the gun didn’t appear to be chamber loaded. You can see the kid was clearly pulling the trigger, had it been chamber loaded, it could have been a horrific, horrific situation.’
Fortunately, the officers were apparently correct, and at no point did the gun discharge. Neither was anyone injured.
However, there are frequent incidents in the US where children obtain firearms and consequently injure or kill themselves or others.
A police officer in the On Patrol: Live segment said that neighbors had called the police after seeing the child with a gun.
When asked if he had a firearm, the father lied and said he did not. After another officer repeated the question while presenting him with the footage of the boy holding the gun, the father doubled down on his claim.
‘I have never brought a gun in this house. If there is [a gun], it’s my cousin’s,’ the father said.
The police reported in the segment said that the father gave them permission to search the apartment for the gun.
They then located it where it had been placed in the back of a drawer. The father was then promptly arrested.
Viewers of the video were horrified.
‘The father shouldn’t be allowed to ever own a gun again,’ wrote one commenter on Mediaite.
‘He should be charged with reckless endangerment, tried, found guilty, and sentenced to the maximum.
‘Another also added that he thought there should be a serious prison sentence for the father.
‘If you leave a gun out where a child can get to it and use it, you should be criminally liable for whatever damage the child does,’ they wrote.
‘Similar to a felony murder statute, you need not pull the trigger to be convicted of homicide.’
Last year, the Center for Disease Control (CDC) released data that showed firearm-related deaths as the leading cause of death among American children. This rate surpasses both car accidents and diseases.
