PALM BEACH COUNTY, Fla. — A toddler shot himself in the hand Monday after a loaded gun was left on a couch, resulting in the arrest of a 24-year-old Pahokee man.
According to a heavily redacted probable cause affidavit, the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office responded to Lakeside Medical Center in Belle Glade, where the 2-year-old boy was taken for treatment.
An investigator with the Florida Department of Children and Families (DCF) interviewed the child at the hospital about what happened to his hand.
"I shot it with a gun! I shot myself! I shot it! I was crying," the boy replied, according to the sheriff's office incident report.
The boy went on to tell the DCF investigator that "The gun was on the couch!"
Detectives said they went to the apartment where the shooting took place and found a single shell casing in the living room and blood droplets on the floor.
They also spoke to a neighbor who told them that they heard one gunshot and then heard a child screaming.
The owner of the gun, Jashawn Mathis, told deputies that he carries the weapon, a CZ P-10 S, for protection because there was a shooting recently and he believed that someone might want to harm him to get to a family member.
The report said that Mathis told investigators that typically, "when he visits the children, he puts the firearm in a snap-sealed box and places it on top of the kitchen's cabinet."
However, on this day, he "accidentally left the handgun on the couch" when he was outside talking to others.
Deputies found the handgun with a loaded magazine and an empty round in the chamber in the kitchen cabinet of the home.
Mathis was taken to the Palm Beach County jail and faces charges of child neglect with great bodily harm and culpable negligence.
He is being held on a $20,000 bond.
