Toddler finds gun in auto, shoots grandmother in back

A two-year-old toddler in the USA has shot his grandmother in the back with a gun that he found in a auto. The sister was driving the vehicle with her great-nephew in the backseat and the child’s grandmother in the passenger seat when the shooting happened, reports CBS affiliate WBTV.

The driver of the vehicle, who was the child’s great aunt, said that she heard the shot and then turned to see the boy holding the pistol with both hands.

Rock Hill police Capt. Mark Bollinger said the 40-year-old woman is expected to survive. The boy’s grandmother went to Carolinas Medical Center in Charlotte with non-life threatening injuries, Bollinger said.

Police said the child was able to pull back the trigger, discharging the weapon.

“It was in a pouch behind the passenger seat, somehow the child reached in and got ahold of it, that’s something our detectives are working on today”, Bollinger said. The owner of the gun could face criminal charges. “Especially around small children”.

In 2004, a 2-year-old was shot in the head and killed when another toddler found a gun on a kitchen table in a Rock Hill home.

Herald reporter Andrew Dys contributed.