Youngsgtown boy, 4, hurt when gun discharges

Staff report

YOUNGSTOWN

Police will confer with the city prosecutor’s office on whether criminal charges should be filed over a gun that discharged and injured a 4-year-old boy, said Capt. Mark Milstead, chief of detectives.

The boy was in critical but stable condition late Friday in St. Elizabeth Health Center with a gunshot wound to the head after a firearm discharged while the boy was in a bedroom on the East Side.

“It appears that the shooting was accidental, and that the weapon was left in an area that was accessible to this 4-year-old, who somehow got a hold of it, and it discharged, striking him in the cheek,” Milstead said.

The case is being investigated by Detective Patrick Kelly, who will present the matter to city Prosecutor Dana Lantz on Monday morning, Milstead said.

The boy, Tristian Jackson, suffered the wound in an apartment in the 600 block of Kendis Circle at about 7:35 a.m. Friday.

A woman in the apartment was awakened by a gunshot, found Tristian crying with blood on him, and drove him to the hospital in a private car.

At the hospital, police observed the boy talking and crying, with a bloody and swollen right cheek.

The boy’s father told police he had slept in the same bed overnight with Tristian until he left for work at about 6 a.m., and that he kept a loaded 9 mm gun under the bed. Police recovered the gun at the scene.