Report: Boy, 5, shot himself with unsecured gun in home

A 5-year-old boy was rushed into surgery Monday night after he grabbed one of his father’s guns from a table inside their Hollywood apartment and shot himself in the arm, according to a probable cause affidavit.

The boy’s father, Travoynne Martin, 32, is now facing felony charges of culpable negligence and child neglect with great bodily harm, Broward County court records show. He was released from jail after posting bail.

One of Martin’s neighbors called 911 to report a suspicious incident after the neighbor said Martin came banging on his door shortly after 10 p.m. and had blood on his shoulder, according to the affidavit for Martin’s arrest. The neighbor saw Martin and his girlfriend and their son speed off in their car.

As officers were responding to the neighbor’s call, dispatchers learned that a young child who had been shot was at Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital. Officers interviewed the boy and Martin at the hospital separately, according to the affidavit.

Martin said he and his family returned home from dinner, and as he sat on the couch, he removed his Taurus GX4 handgun from his waistband and put it on the table while still in its holster, the affidavit said. His son was sitting with him on the couch.

Not long after, Martin heard two bangs and his son “immediately lunged onto him crying and saying ‘I’m sorry,’” the affidavit said. His son was bleeding from his left arm, and he told his girlfriend to drive them to the hospital. The girlfriend told officers she did not know what happened.

An officer talked to the boy after his surgery, noting that he appeared to be telling the truth about what happened. He said he was “shot by a gun” and that he “touched it and squeezed it,” the affidavit said.

The boy said he knew he was not supposed to touch guns. His upper left arm had been grazed by the bullet, according to the affidavit.

In another interview at the Hollywood Police Department, Martin told officers he had several guns in his home but that he usually kept them unloaded on the top shelf of his closet, out of the children’s reach, according to the affidavit. His girlfriend’s 12-year-old son also lives in the home but had been staying with relatives during the holiday break.

Martin said his guns were only out while he cleaned them, when they would be unloaded, the affidavit said. Officers obtained a search warrant and found eight loaded guns, including handguns and rifles, an AR-15, a shotgun and a revolver, in the apartment, including in the living room and a bedroom.

All but one of the guns were unsecured and easily accessible to anyone in the apartment, the affidavit said.

As a condition of Martin’s pre-trial release, he has been ordered to surrender all firearms to Hollywood Police and has been placed on electronic monitoring, according to court records. He is also not to have contact with the victim or victims.

Martin’s attorney information was not available Thursday.

Martin was arrested in 2014 on charges of burglary of an unoccupied dwelling, grand theft in the third degree and grand theft of a firearm, court records show. He pleaded no contest and was not formally convicted, receiving two years probation.

There were over 1,500 unintentional shootings in the United States in 2023, according to the Gun Violence Archive, an independent research group that tracks gun violence incidents on its website.

There were 377 unintentional shootings by children in 2023 in the country, according to Everytown for Gun Safety, a gun control advocacy organization, with 247 resulting in injuries and 145 resulting in death. The organization’s 2023 research report on unintentional shootings said children between the ages of 14 and 17 and preschoolers 5 years old and younger are the two groups most likely to unintentionally shoot themselves or other people.

“Nearly one child gains access to a loaded firearm and unintentionally shoots themself or someone else every day in America — an average of 350 children a year,” the report said.