Authorities in Tennessee have jailed a man after they say his 5-year-old son got home from school, found his father’s gun, and shot himself in the head.
Prosecutors have charged Marquavious Washington, 24, with criminally negligent homicide in the death of the child, Tamir Washington, according to court records. Prosecutors also charged the defendant with aggravated child abuse and reckless endangerment with a deadly weapon.
On Monday afternoon, Tamir was at his home on Baysweet Drive in Memphis, Tennessee. His mother, Rodnesha Walker, told local NBC affiliate WMC that he had just come home from school, and he was doing his homework and eating.
Then, he apparently went into a room with his brother.
Tamir found his father’s firearm and shot himself in the head, according to an affidavit of complaint. Deputies with the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office responded to the area and found a chaotic scene.
They saw Tamir “laying on the ground bleeding from his head” and “moaning and moving.” One officer held a towel to put pressure on the wound, but the “bleeding was severe.”
“The wound appeared consistent with a gun shot wound to the head,” the court document added.
Emergency personnel arrived and cared for the child before bringing him to a nearby children’s hospital. He died less than an hour after police first arrived at the home.
Washington — the defendant — was reportedly “standing in the front yard” and “yelling about how he did not know how Tamir Washington had found his gun.” Walker, Tamir’s mother, was walking around “frantic and screaming” and “covered in blood.”
Neighbors tried to help the family. One told officers that she was inside her home when she heard “a loud knocking on her door” and saw the scene in the front yard. She said she heard someone say, “He shot himself.”
When deputies entered the house, they found a black handgun on a bed in a bedroom. They also found “a large amount of blood on the floor of the residence.”
Officers arrested Washington and booked him into the Shelby County Jail. Authorities are holding him on $100,000 bond, and he is due in court on Thursday.
Tamir had reportedly just started the school year two weeks before.
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