Indiana man charged after his child in childbirth pointed a gun at people
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — The father of a 4-year-old boy in diapers seen last weekend pointing a loaded handgun at people outside their apartment in Indiana is now facing charges of crime.
The Marion County District Attorney’s Office said Wednesday the 45-year-old was charged Tuesday with two counts of neglect of a dependent and one count of dangerous firearm control. He is due to appear in court on Thursday for a first hearing.
Online court records do not list an attorney who could speak on behalf of the man, who The Associated Press is not naming to protect the child’s privacy. Michael Leffler, a spokesman for the district attorney’s office, confirmed Wednesday that the man charged is the boy’s father.
Court documents say the man, a felon on bail in an ongoing household battery case, “had an unsecured, loaded firearm in his residence.” The documents add that he “poses a direct threat to the welfare of his child, his neighbors and their children, through his negligent and reckless actions.”
According to a probable cause affidavit filed with the charges, the boy was in the care of his father while the mother was ill and living elsewhere. Officers were called Saturday night to an apartment complex in the Indianapolis suburb of Beech Grove about a young boy wearing only a diaper who “had a chrome handgun and was pointing it at people.”
Officers went to an apartment and a 4-year-old boy opened the door for officers, with no adults visible. After an officer repeatedly called anyone inside, officers entered and saw the man, who was wearing only underwear, at the end of a hallway, apparently having just been woke up by officers, authorities said.
The man told officers he had been ill and did not know his son had left the apartment. He also said there were no guns in the apartment and his son did not have a toy gun. The man helped officers conduct a “prompt search” of the apartment and no firearms were found, authorities said.
As officers were leaving the apartment, a neighbor played security camera video to them that showed the boy walking upstairs in the building “with a silver and black handgun,” according to the affidavit.
When officers told the man about the video, he told them that although he didn’t have a gun, “a relative may have left one in the apartment.” Authorities didn’t find the gun until an officer ‘asked the child where he put his toy while showing his hand in the form of a gun,’ the affidavit states. .
The child then walked over to a rolling desk in the living room and waved at him. The officer opened the lid of the desk “exposing a silver and black handgun sitting on the desk” which appeared to be the one the officers had seen in the video, according to the affidavit.
The weapon was determined to be a Smith & Wesson 9mm handgun, and although no cartridges were in the chamber of the weapon, it contained “15 actual rounds in the magazine”, according to the affidavit.
The man then told officers the gun belonged to a cousin “who sometimes left the handgun at the apartment when he felt mentally unstable,” according to the affidavit. The man said he did not know his cousin’s address or phone number.
Marion County District Attorney Ryan Mears said in a statement Wednesday that the “alleged conduct is a stark example of the importance of practicing safe storage” of firearms.
“Too many children in our community are put at risk due to irresponsible gun ownership,” he added.
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