A baby was fatally shot by a toddler inside a car parked outside a San Antonio medical center, authorities said, marking the latest accidental shooting involving children .
A woman, a three-year-old, a two-year-old and an infant were all in a parked SUV outside the Audie L. Murphy VA Medical Center, authorities said in a news conference, according to CBS affiliate KENS . There was a loaded long gun “in the very rear of the vehicle,” police chief William McManus said, and one of the toddlers got ahold of the weapon and fired it, striking and killing the infant, who was 10 or 11 months old.
Police have not said who owns the gun. No charges have been filed.
Such shootings have been on the rise in recent years. Hundreds of young children in the U.S. have been killed while playing with guns in the past two decades, according to a 2023 study published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The study found that most of those deaths were preventable, since they involved guns that were stored unlocked and loaded.