Aunt of Arkansas boy killed in accidental shooting released

LITTLE ROCK — A Little Rock woman was released Thursday on $10,000 bond after court documents show she was charged with manslaughter in the accidental shooting death of her 6-year-old nephew.

Arkansas health officials urged parents and guardians to practice gun safety after the boy, whose name was withheld by police, died Wednesday evening at Arkansas Children’s Hospital from a single gunshot wound. He was the third child who was fatally shot in Arkansas in less than a week.

The Arkansas Children’s Hospital held an event earlier this year and handed out about 75 free trigger locks for parents, according to Mary Aitken, director of the Injury Prevention Center at the hospital. But with one of the highest rates of unlocked guns in the country, she said, more education is needed.

“It varies over time, but we see between 25 and 35 children a year who have sustained injuries from firearms,” Aitken, who is also pediatrician at the University of Arkansas for the Medical Sciences College of Medicine, said. “The bottom line is that firearms and children are a lethal mix… Young children at the age of 2 or 3 have the strength to pull a trigger but not the understanding of what a gun really is. We need to keep them safe and not be kidding ourselves.”

Several groups have launched campaigns to remind gun owners to either store their firearms unloaded in locked boxes with ammunition stored separately or attach trigger locks that disable the trigger mechanism. A second campaign urges parents to ask the parents of their children’s friends if they have guns and how they are stored, Aitken said.

Few details have been made public about the three children who were all taken to Arkansas Children’s Hospital with single, fatal gunshot wounds.

The most recent came after 4 p.m. Wednesday in Little Rock, when police received a 911 call from the boy’s aunt saying she had returned to her car and found the boy laying across the backseat and that he had “shot himself.”

Little Rock Police spokesman Lt. Steve McClanahan said the shooting appeared to be accidental but was still under investigation. According to the police report, the boy had a gunshot wound to the face, and police recovered a handgun at the scene.

The boy’s 38-year-old aunt was charged with being a felon in possession of a handgun and manslaughter, McClanahan said in an emailed statement.

No attorney information was listed for the woman in court documents and messages seeking comment from her family members were not returned.

On Tuesday, a 2-year-old Benton boy died from a gunshot wound in an incident that is still under investigation. Benton Police spokesman Lt. Kevin Russell said investigators had not ruled out the possibility of charges, but said he could not release details of the shooting.

The third incident was a hunting accident that happened Sunday.

A 16-year-old Sevier County boy and his little brother were shooting at crows Saturday when he stepped in front of the younger brother as the boy fired his gun, according to a Sevier County Sheriff’s office report. No charges were filed in the accident. The 16-year-old died at Arkansas Children’s Hospital.

In May, a 5-year-old died in Redfield when he was shot by a sibling at their home. Prosecutors declined to file charges against an adult male relative.