{"id":234185,"date":"2026-04-16T12:38:27","date_gmt":"2026-04-16T12:38:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/234185\/"},"modified":"2026-04-16T12:38:27","modified_gmt":"2026-04-16T12:38:27","slug":"3-year-old-shoots-himself-in-arm-after-tampa-man-leaves-gun-unattended-tpd-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/234185\/","title":{"rendered":"3-year-old shoots himself in arm after Tampa man leaves gun unattended: TPD"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA)\u2014 A Tampa man was arrested after a 3-year-old was injured by an unsecured gun, the Tampa Police Department announced. <\/p>\n<p>Officers responded to the 3600 block of N 51st Street on Tuesday after reports of a child with a gunshot wound to the arm. <\/p>\n<p>According to officers, initial reports revealed that at around 7:14 p.m., the child had been in bed with his mother and her boyfriend, Steve Johnson, 30, when he allegedly left a gun unsecured in the bed after getting up to use the restroom. <\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" height=\"720\" width=\"1280\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/johnson.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-3250001\"  \/>Credit: Tampa Police Department<\/p>\n<p>The boy then gained access to the gun, which discharged, and hit him in the forearm.<\/p>\n<p>The boy\u2019s mother immediately rendered aid and called 911. The boy was transported to a nearby hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt is incredibly fortunate that this was not a fatal tragedy,\u201d\u00a0said Chief Lee Bercaw.\u00a0\u201cThis incident highlights the double danger of a convicted felon unlawfully possessing a firearm and then failing to secure it. A gun should never be within reach of a child. There is no excuse for such negligence when the cost could easily have been a young life.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>During an investigation, detectives learned that Johnson was a convicted felon who was unlawfully in possession of a firearm. <\/p>\n<p>Johnson was arrested and charged with being a felon in possession of a firearm, child neglect with great bodily harm, safe storage of firearms, and possession of cannabis less than 20 grams.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA)\u2014 A Tampa man was arrested after a 3-year-old was injured by an unsecured gun, the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":234186,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[135,137,136],"class_list":["post-234185","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234185","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=234185"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234185\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/234186"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=234185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=234185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=234185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}