Father dies after 2-year-old boy accidentally shoots him in the back: "He doesn’t understand"
By RonnySteel
A Father in North Carolina was killed by his 2-year-old boy who accidentally shot him as he was eating dinner. The tragic incident took place in the city of Gastinia, near Charlotte, when 29-year-old Markovia Durham and his son were visiting his great-grandmother on Sunday. As per Fox 46, the accident happened around 8:45 p.m. and grandmother, Phyllis Holland, revealed that the boy picked up the gun mistaking it for a toy and ended up shooting his dad in the back.
"The daddy was sitting on the couch and the baby got up on the couch and picked the gun up from behind the daddy," she recalled. "Picked the gun up not knowing it was a real gun, and put it to the daddy’s back and pulled the trigger thinking the gun was a toy." Holland also shared that Durham had recently purchased the gun which ended up killing him. "He keeps the gun away," added Holland. "He kept the gun away from him. At that moment, he just wasn’t thinking."
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After the gun went off, the terrified boy- who has not been identified by police- ran out of the apartment. Emergency services were immediately informed and first responders arrived at Holland's apartment complex at around 9:30 p.m. Unfortunately there was nothing they could do to save Durham and he pronounced dead at the scene. It remains unclear whether Gastonia Police Department will charge the toddler or not as the investigation surrounding the his involvement is still pending. According to Daily Mail, the Department of Social Services has questioned family members of Durham regarding the incident.
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Speaking about the heartbreaking situation, Holland says that the little child still doesn't comprehend the circumstances of the shooting completely and that he continues to ask for his father. While he understands that something is wrong, he still doesn't quite get what actually went down. "He want his Dada. He’s only a 2-year-old. He doesn’t understand," said the grandmother. Meanwhile neighbors of the family were left heartbroken by the event as they could not even imagine the devastation the family and the little boy must be going through at the moment. "I just hate it for that child because his life is messed up because, you know, it was his daddy," said a neighbor named Tasha Phillips.
"And if he did that, that little boy is going to go through something for the rest of his life and it just hurts me because I have grandkids of my own," she added. As for the owner and instructor at Southern Belle Firearms Training, Jennifer Fredell-Saucier, she said it's the gun owners responsibility to keep their weapons away from children as they are too young to understand the difference between a toy gun and a real one or the consequences of using the weapon for that matter. "A lot of people look at the situation and they think that the child knows that’s a gun. That’s dangerous and that’s not always the case," Saucier told WSOC-TV. "Even children 7-10 years of age maybe do not understand the difference. They do not understand the harm that can come from a firearm."
Featured image, facebook image and tutorial credited to FOX 46 Charlotte via YouTube
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