{"id":312874,"date":"2026-10-23T19:24:08","date_gmt":"2026-10-23T19:24:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/312874\/"},"modified":"2026-10-23T19:24:08","modified_gmt":"2026-10-23T19:24:08","slug":"horrific-tragedy-3-year-old-fatally-shoots-self-with-dads-gun-at-florida-burger-king","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/312874\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Horrific tragedy\u2019: 3-year-old fatally shoots self with dad\u2019s gun at Florida Burger King"},"content":{"rendered":"

POLK COUNTY, Fla. \u2013 A 3-year-old boy died Thursday after accidentally shooting himself in the face with his father\u2019s gun at a Burger King restaurant drive-thru in Polk County, according to a report from our sister station WKMG<\/a>.<\/p>\n

What happened?<\/p>\n

Around 6:23 p.m., the child\u2019s father pulled through the drive-thru to pay for dinner, pulling out his credit card to do so, Judd explained. However, the sale reportedly wouldn\u2019t go through.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s only been here about four months from Connecticut,\u201d Judd stated. \u201cThe victim \u2014 dad and mom both are managers and well-thought-of at Lowe\u2019s, and they moved south to get in the warm weather. So he\u2019s had problems with the credit card seeing that their sales [are] in Florida.\u201d<\/p>\n

As a result, the father parked outside, working to get the credit card to function, Judd said.<\/p>\n

But while he was dealing with that, he took a firearm out of his waistband and laid it down because it was getting \u201cuncomfortable,\u201d the sheriff added. It should be noted that the father was apparently permitted to carry.<\/p>\n

However, Judd said the child likely saw the gun, picked it up to play with it, and ended up shooting himself in the face. The child was taken to the hospital, where he later died.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a horrible tragedy,\u201d Judd remarked.<\/p>\n

Will the father face charges?<\/p>\n

After explaining what happened, Judd touched on a state statute for culpable negligence, which is imposed as a third-degree felony if a child gets his\/her hands on a firearm and is consequently hurt.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe law says that we can\u2019t take any legal action if we choose to for at least seven days,\u201d Judd explained. \u201cAnd we have to send the information to the State Attorney\u2019s Office. There couldn\u2019t be a unilateral arrest if we wanted.\u201d<\/p>\n

That said, Judd said there \u201cis no appetite\u201d to continue with criminal charges in this case, unless further evidence arises.<\/p>\n

\u201c[The father] was doing the best he could. The child was in the backseat playing, and he absolutely had no clue,\u201d Judd argued. \u201cAt least, according to the initial information. Until he hears the pop.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bartow Deputy Chief Kyle Dowdy also spoke during the briefing, stating that the father was \u201cdistraught.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is going to be a family without a son tonight, without a nephew, without a cousin,\u201d Dowdy said. \u201cThere\u2019s going to be a mom and dad. They\u2019re going to try to pick up the shambles of this horrific event.\u201d<\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 by WJXT News4JAX – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"POLK COUNTY, Fla. \u2013 A 3-year-old boy died Thursday after accidentally shooting himself in the face with his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":312875,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[136,138,137,5918,106862],"class_list":["post-312874","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-erie","tag-erie","tag-erie-headlines","tag-erie-news","tag-florida","tag-polk-county"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312874","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=312874"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312874\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/312875"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=312874"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=312874"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=312874"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}