A Chicago man is in jail after his 6-year-old son fatally shot his 3-year-old brother with a gun left in the kitchen.
Michael Santiago, 25, was charged with one count of felony child endangerment resulting in death for knowingly storing a loaded firearm on top of the refrigerator at his West Side home, according to Chicago police.
Santiago's 6-year-old son found the gun and accidentally shot the younger brother, Eian Santiago, in the head around 9 p.m. Saturday, police said. A family member then carried the young boy to the hospital at the end of the street; he was later transported to an area trauma center where he was pronounced dead.
Police remained on the scene more than four hours after the incident. It was not immediately clear who was looking after the 6-year-old boy following his father's arrest.
The boys were playing "cops and robbers" when the shooting occurred, police told the Chicago Tribune. Police told the paper Santiago admitted he was a former gang member and purchased the gun from another gang member to protect his family.
Police are tracing the gun, which was not legally registered, the Chicago Sun-Times reported.
Chicago police said that Santiago was due in bond court Sunday. The Cook County state's attorney did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
In the United States, at least 2,694 children and teens died from guns in 2010, according to the juvenile advocacy group Children's Defense Fund. Having a gun in the home makes an accidental death four times more likely, according to the group's 2013 report.
Neither the Centers for Disease Control nor the Department of Justice track specific numbers of now many children unintentionally shoot and kill people.
In a 2014 report on accidental shooting deaths of children younger than 14, gun safety group Everytown suggested at least 100 children in that age range died in just the year between December 2012 and December 2013. The report noted roughly two-thirds of the unintentional child deaths took place in a family's home or vehicle and that more than two-thirds of the tragedies could have been avoided if the gun had been properly locked and stored.
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