A Wisconsin dad is under fire for allegedly telling his 6-year-old son to lie about shooting his 4-year-old sister in the face.
The incident happened Aug. 30 in Alma, Wis., when the boy allegedly found a loaded shotgun and pointed it at the girl. The gun discharged, striking the girl in the right side of her head, WKBT reported.
The girl's injuries were deemed non-life-threatening, but on Monday investigators charged the father, Fred Maphis, with leaving a loaded firearm near a child and obstructing an officer by telling the son to lie about the shooting, the LaCrosse Tribune reported.
Officials said the boy initially told investigators he picked up the shotgun and then dropped it, at which point it fired and hit his sister.
He later admitted that his dad told him to lie about how the gun discharged. His revised story was that his sister asked him to point the gun at her. The accident happened when he aimed it too close to her ear while trying to aim past her shoulder.
The boy's mother told investigators that her son had been trained to use firearms since he was 3 and even had his own .22 caliber rifle that he was allowed to shoot with adult supervision, RawStory.com reported.
Maphis insisted that he had just forgotten to unload and secure the shotgun.
He is scheduled to be in court on Sept. 23, according to Opposing Views.
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