TACOMA, Wash. (AP) — A 3-year-old boy accidentally shot and killed himself with a gun he found in a car as a family made a stop early Wednesday at a gas station in Washington state.
Police Officer Naveed Benjamin says the man put his pistol under the seat and got out to pump gas while the boy’s mother went inside the gas station in Tacoma. They left her son and the man’s 4- or 5-year-old daughter in the car.
Benjamin says the boy climbed out of his child seat, found the gun and accidentally shot himself. He was declared dead at a hospital.
The girl was not injured.
The family has not been identified. Benjamin says they are not from Tacoma and their car has Oregon plates.
