Child dead in accidental shooting outside Bartow Burger King | FULL

Ladies and gentlemen thank you for being with us this evening. I have Chief Doughty with me from the Bartow Police Department and we're going to update you about a very very tragic event that occurred this evening. It is just a real pleasure for us to have the opportunity to work with the Bartow Police Department. They're professional in every sense of the word and we work seamlessly together on these very, very difficult cases. Now, I'm going to give you the preliminary information that I always do. As you know, our policy is to be transparent and we release to you the best information we have at this moment in time. Any information that the chief or I give you this evening is certainly subject to update or modification later on we are still in the preliminary phases of interviews but here's what we know we have a three-year-old child who was turning four years old in only four days that from all initial indications got a firearm and shot and killed himself tonight and here's the circumstances we know this is the firearm and we're at the Burger King in the 100 block of Van Fleet in Bartow Florida and about 6 23 this evening our victims father pulled through the drive-through and ordered dinner and tried to pay for it with his credit card and the sale wouldn't go through. Well, the reason the sale wouldn't go through, he's only been here about four months from Connecticut. Our victim, dad and mom, both are managers and well thought of at Lowe's, and they moved south to get in the warm weather. So he's had problems with the credit card seen that there's sales in Florida and they live in Connecticut. So this was not an unusual circumstance. He pulls around and we have the video from the Burger King and he parks. The initial information is he is working with trying trying to get the credit card to work. He may have been on the phone with a relative trying to get Apple Pay redone. But anyway, he's distracted. As he's bending over looking at his credit card he's carrying a this Glock in his waistband and it is very uncomfortable because he's bending over so he takes his Glock out of his waistband and lays it down. The child is in the backseat playing and he is now trying to figure out how to get whatever device he's working with to pay for their dinner when all of a sudden he hears a loud pop we see him jump out of the car and frantically start running around we see a lady next door in the car next door to him jump out and she's dialing 9-1-1 and at that point in time and I'll let the chief give you the details about the police response but at the end of the day we see at this point in the investigation that the baby was rushed to Lakeland Regional Health where he was pronounced deceased at about 7 30. We know that they worked tirelessly in order to save this child's life but it wasn't to be. We also know from at least the initial information that we can see where there's a bullet hole directly through the roof of the car, and the child's shot in the face. So subjectively, and it's totally subjective at this point in the investigation, we think Dad took the gun out, he laid it down, he doesn't remember where, he's still in a state of shock, and while he's trying to figure out how to pay for dinner on the credit card. The child obviously sees the gun, picks it up, and is playing with it and shoots himself in the face. This is a horrible tragedy, and that's all the indication that we see at this point in time. Now, let me go ahead and say this before I'm asked. There is a statute, a culpable negligence statute, that makes it a third-degree felony if a child gets a firearm and injures themselves or someone else. The law says that we can't take any legal action if we choose to for at least seven days, and we have to send the information to the state attorney's office. There couldn't be a unilateral arrest if we wanted. We have to discuss it with the state attorney's office. But quite frankly, if the investigation concludes according to what we see now, certainly we would not have any energy at all for suggesting criminal charges but ultimately that'll be a decision by what I believe is the best prosecutor in the world Brian Haas his team in concert with the Bartow Police Department and our detectives from the Sheriff's Office homicide team but before we answer any questions and quite frankly there's not much left for us to answer because we've told you what we know at this early stage of the investigation. Let me turn it over to Chief Dowdy. Thank you, Sheriff. So I'm Chief Dowdy. What we know at this time is when the Bartow Police Department received the call, Captain Fender and his team quickly within minutes responded to the scene. We had Corporal Anderson, Officer Ledford began lifesaving measures as soon as they arrived on scene. The apparent head injury was significant. The trauma was immense and the child was transported to Lakeland Regional Medical Center. I just want to reiterate what the sheriff said. This is an absolute tragedy. There's going to be a family without a son tonight, without a nephew, without a cousin. There's going to be a mom and dad that are going to try to pick up the shambles of this horrific event. And in the end, the community itself is hurting. Any death is tragic. A kid who's about to turn four is just almost unconscionable to me. We're grieving with the family, Bartow citizens. They're going to have a tough time with this one, and we understand that. My officers are having a tough time with this one. They're in the middle right now of a debrief. They're struggling. It's never good to come up on a dead body, but it's especially troublesome and horrific when it's a child, especially a child of that age. We've watched the body cam videos. We've watched the surveillance videos from Burger King. The father is distraught. He's extremely distraught. I'll say officers, you know, are trying to help him, trying to help the child, trying to gather information. It's a dynamic, evolving scene. And the officers did the best they could. And unfortunately, the child was pronounced dead, as the sheriff said. There's nothing that that strikes nearer and dearer to me than the death of a child. And like I said, we're grieving with the entire city of Bartow. Are there any questions? Sir, could you describe these actions as negligence? Would you use that word? What goes into the investigation to see if that is the case? Certainly, this is very, very preliminary information we're releasing tonight, and so I'm not prepared to make any statements about the culpability because it's painfully evident. He's got a permit, by the way, not that he needs one in the state of Florida, but he's got a concealed firearms permit. He doesn't have any criminal history. Mom and dad are both managers in the Lowe's Center. I think they actually work at separate stores or separate warehouses. So they're very responsible people. They're totally cooperative in this investigation. But he was distracted with trying to figure out why in the heck won't this credit card work. And he had had this issue before because they just have moved to Florida. And, of course, the safety systems on the credit cards don't allow them to easily pay at that point in time. So the investigation goes on. But I can tell you if the end of the investigation is as it is now, certainly there's no appetite to move further with criminal charges unless we find something that we don't know about. He was doing the best he could. The child was in the backseat playing, and he absolutely had no clue. at least according to the initial information, until he hears the pop. And we can see the hole through the top of the roof, almost the center of the car. We can also see, according to the significant injury on the child, that it appears the child was in the backseat, leaned over, playing with a gun, when it went off and struck him in the face. The child was in the backseat playing. He was not restrained at that time. I think it's self-evident tonight that this man was doing what good parents do. He was, mom was working or at home, and he was running through the drive-thru like we all do and have done. He grabbed food in a very hectic life. And as a result of him being distracted trying to figure out how to pay, and like i said he was he was bent over the gun was in his waistband which was perfectly legal and he took it out laid it down and he's not sure where because he is still as you can totally understand remarkably distraught and he's he's looking around and he hears the he hears the sound of a gunshot in the back seat so the investigation is underway now you understand we're talking to you at what 9:30, 9:45 something at night this thing just happened three hours ago and we're still putting the pieces together but it's painfully evident or obvious that we we have the basic lineage of what occurred here all right we ask if you pray pray for this family if you don't pray it's a good time to start praying tonight because the horribleness that they are enduring cannot be described in words. Good night.