Police arrest mom of 4-year-old boy who shot himself in face with gun

The day after her 4-year-old son accidentally shot himself in the face, Jennifer Christian told Orange County deputies she put her gun in her nightstand because of the crime in her Pine Hills neighborhood.

Christian said she kept one round in the chamber of the semi- automatic handgun, because if someone were to break into her condo, she wouldn’t have time to load a bullet, court records show.

Christian, also known as Jennifer Montalvo, was confident her son wouldn’t get into the nightstand drawer, according to Sheriff’s Office reports. But on March 20, 2013, while Christian was at work, her 4-year-old found the gun.

OnMonday— more than a year after the shooting — Christian was arrested on two charges stemming from the incident, including neglect of a child causing great bodily harm.

Today, Christian’s son is doing “fine,” his father told the Orlando Sentinel.

Deputies were called to the LosRobles Condominiums on Silver StarRoad the morning ofMarch 20, 2013, after the boy’s teenage aunt found him on the bedroom floor covered in blood.

According to Sheriff’s Office reports, Christian normally took her son to day care, but that day, decided hewould stay home.

Christian told detectives her younger sister was asleep in another room, and she told the16-year-old the boy would be staying home. But investigators later determined the teen didn’t hear her older sister because she took two Tylenol PMs the night before, records said.

The teen told deputies she woke up and heard the television on, which was strange because her nephew was supposed to be in day care. That’s when the teenager went inside Christian’s bedroom and found her nephew on the floor.

“I loaded the bullet that is in my son’s head,” Christian told a detective during a March 21, 2013 interview. “I am always trying to prevent this from happening. The thing you try to prevent the most always ends up happening.”