By Brian Dowling
Boston Herald
YARMOUTH, Mass. — A Yarmouth man is facing weapons charges after his 3-year-old daughter grabbed his .40-caliber pistol off of his bedroom nightstand and shot herself in the hand with the unsecured, unlicensed firearm, police say.
The little girl fired the fully loaded semi-automatic gun about 1 p.m. Friday, leaving her with a severely wounded left hand.
Yarmouth firefighters rushed the child to the emergency room at Cape Cod Hospital after providing emergency first aid inside the family’s home.
After she was stabilized, she was rushed to a Boston hospital, where she is expected to survive her injuries.
When investigators learned the girl took the handgun off the top of a nightstand in the bedroom she shares with her parents, officers seized the handgun as well as a number of other unlicensed firearms and ammunition from the home, police said.
Although the girl’s father, 30-year-old Nicholas Alexander Jenner, was not arrested, he will be summoned to Barnstable District Court and charged with improper storage of a large capacity gun near a minor, unlawful possession of a large capacity gun and reckless endangerment of a child.
Jenner is a military veteran who is living with his parents in South Yarmouth. A relative of Jenner who answered the phone yesterday declined to comment.
In a statement, Yarmouth cops reminded “everyone who has a firearm to be fully aware of the proper safety procedures and their legal storage requirements and all of the Massachusetts gun laws” and extended “our gratitude to the Police Officers and Firefighters involved in this incident as well as all of the Doctors and Nurses at Cape Cod Hospital and in Boston who all came together — at Christmas — and helped save this child’s life.”
The Massachusetts Department of Children and Families was immediately contacted and has taken custody of the child.
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