A 9mm handgun was stored in a nightstand drawer in the bedroom where the children were playing.
"It appears the 4-year-old did know where this firearm was," Ojile said. "He had seen the firearm." He did not lift and point the handgun, Ojile said. It appears he simply reached in and pulled the trigger, with the bullet passing through the nightstand and striking his brother, who was standing close by.
On April 18, a three-year-old girl in Cache County, Utah, accidentally shot and killed her two-year-old brother. A day before that incident, a 6-year-old boy accidentally killed a woman in South Carolina when he shot a loaded gun, which he found in a car.
Also in April, a five-year-old boy accidentally shot and killed a seven-year-old girl while playing at a birthday party in Gaston, South Carolina, and a two-year-old boy accidentally shot and killed his 11-year-old sister while playing with a handgun in Philadelphia.