Three-year-old dies in tragic gun incident

A three-year-old girl was fatally shot at her Laing Avenue, West Ruimveldt home yesterday, while she and her two-year-old brother were playing with a loaded gun that was left under a chair cushion by their father.

Dead is Ashanti Jordan of 115 Laing Avenue. She and her little brother reportedly espied the licensed gun, which their father had placed under a cushion while he went to the bathroom, removed it and began to play with it. Shortly after, a gunshot rang out. The children’s father has since been taken into police custody.

A relative, who didn’t want to be named, told Stabroek News that Jordan’s father, who is a policeman as well as a licensed firearm holder, was with two of his three children in the living room shortly after 4 pm yesterday.

The man then got up and went to the bathroom upstairs leaving the firearm under a chair cushion. Jordan’s mother was also upstairs with their three-month-old baby girl.

The relative said the two children, who had apparently seen their father’s actions, retrieved the firearm from under the cushion and began playing with it when the shot went off. Jordan was hit in the left side of the face. It was not clear what type of firearm it was but it was described as an “automatic” one.

The child was rushed to the Georgetown Public Hospital by her grandmother, Gillian Charles, where she was pronounced dead on arrival.

When this newspaper visited the home yesterday, shocked relatives and residents gathered while police carried out investigations. When Charles arrived back from the hospital, loud wails broke out.

The relative said that on Tuesday, the family had celebrated Jordan’s brother’s second birthday. “She was very smart for a three-year-old,” the relative said.