Officials were still working to determine exactly how the shooting happened<\/a>.<\/p>\n\u201cWe have a three-year-old child who is deceased from a gunshot wound from a weapon that was in the home,\u201d Bouchard said during a news conference.<\/p>\n
The shooting occurred in the 100 block of Maynard Court. <\/p>\n
Police said the boy was taken to an area hospital, where he was pronounced dead.<\/p>\n
Bouchard said two adults and five children were inside the home at the time, including the boy\u2019s mother and grandmother, as well as children ages eight, seven, three and eight months.<\/p>\n
Officials recovered a Taurus handgun from the home. <\/p>\n
Bouchard said the crime scene team had not yet moved the firearm and that its caliber had not been determined.<\/p>\n
Detectives, forensic investigators and the sheriff\u2019s crime lab were working at the scene Tuesday night.<\/p>\n
\u201cA determination of exactly how that played out is, as I said, underway,\u201d Bouchard said. \u201cSomeone will be held accountable for this completely unnecessary tragedy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bouchard stressed the responsibility that comes with owning a firearm, particularly in a home where children are present.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you\u2019re an adult and you own a weapon and you have an eight-month-old, a three-year-old, a seven-year-old and an eight-year-old in the house, by God, use common sense,\u201d Bouchard said. \u201cKeep this weapon out of the hands of this child.\u201d<\/p>\n
Other children remain with investigators<\/p>\n
The other children who were inside the home remained with detectives and other officials as investigators determined who could appropriately care for them, Bouchard said.<\/p>\n
Bouchard said the boy\u2019s father was not inside the home when the shooting occurred. <\/p>\n
Officials were still determining who lived at the residence and who was responsible for the children at the time.<\/p>\n
Bouchard said preliminary information indicates the father owned the handgun.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s still a work in progress of who actually lives there, who would be the responsible adult,\u201d Bouchard said.<\/p>\n
Sheriff urges gun owners to secure firearms<\/p>\n
Bouchard said the shooting underscores the importance of properly securing firearms around children.<\/p>\n
The Oakland County Sheriff\u2019s Office has provided free gun locks for more than a decade, Bouchard said, and will continue making them available to residents.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf that\u2019s the only impediment, we have them free here, and we\u2019ll give them to anyone that needs or wants one,\u201d Bouchard said.<\/p>\n
Bouchard also urged gun owners to consider the safety of children and other people who may enter their homes.<\/p>\n
\u201cThink about your kids. Think about the safety of who comes into the home, even if it\u2019s not your child,\u201d Bouchard said.<\/p>\n
Investigation continues<\/p>\n
Officials were processing the home for evidence, examining the firearm for forensic evidence, and interviewing people who were inside, Bouchard said.<\/p>\n
Police were also working to establish a timeline, including where each person was inside the home when the shooting occurred.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019ll be taking this by the numbers to make sure that it\u2019s done right because obviously you\u2019ve got a death here that has to have some accountability,\u201d Bouchard said.<\/p>\n
Bouchard also said the department would check on deputies and other personnel who responded to the scene, noting the emotional impact that incidents involving children can have on first responders.<\/p>\n
The investigation remains ongoing.<\/p>\n
Click here for the full presser<\/a><\/p>\nCopyright 2026 by WDIV ClickOnDetroit – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"OAKLAND COUNTY, Mich. \u2013 A 3-year-old boy died after being shot inside a Pontiac apartment in what Oakland…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":465160,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[143,904,145,144,3131],"class_list":["post-465159","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-county","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news","tag-pontiac"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/465159","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=465159"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/465159\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/465160"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=465159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=465159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=465159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}