The toddler found the gun in a Paw Patrol backpack at the family’s home.
A man has been arrested over the death of a woman who was fatally shot in the head by her toddler during a Zoom call to work colleagues.
21-year-old Shamaya Lynn was killed on August 11 when her child fired a loaded gun found at the family’s home in Altamonte Springs, Florida.
Today reports that the child’s father, Veondre Avery, 22, was arrested on Tuesday and faces charges of manslaughter and failure to securely store a firearm.
Lynn had been talking to work colleagues over Zoom when the gun went off. Members of the call alerted emergency services and reported hearing a noise before the mum suddenly fell backwards and began bleeding, unresponsive.
Prosecutors said police arrived to find Avery performing CPR on Lynn, but she was pronounced dead at the scene.
The toddler and another child who had been at the home at the time of the shooting were uninjured.
A police investigation concluded the toddler found the gun in a Paw Patrol backpack in the couple’s bedroom.
Prosecutors said a single shot was fired to Lynn’s head, and that “forensic evidence clearly established that the child possessed and independently fired the weapon.”
A 911 call recording reportedly featured Avery begging paramedics to hurry, telling the dispatcher he had come home to find his girlfriend bleeding on the floor and had no idea what happened.
“I know it’s tragic, I know it may not have been something that that person wanted to do, but now you have consequences,” Altamonte Springs Police Officer Rob Ruiz said on Tuesday regarding the charges Avery now faces.
He added that gun owners have a responsibility to keep firearms locked up and secured, and urged gun owners tuning into the case to practice safe storage to avoid incidents like this.
