Police in Indiana arrested a man after neighbors reported his toddler was wandering an apartment hallway with a loaded gun, according to officials.
The incident was captured on camera as Beech Grove police responded to a complaint about a child allegedly strolling alone while brandishing a gun. The footage aired on Saturday night’s episode of Reelz’s On Patrol: Live.
According to the video, the boy’s father, Shane Osborne, 45, who claimed there was no gun in his apartment, was first addressed by police after a neighbor alerted them.
Initially, the officers believed the father’s claims until the neighbor approached the four responding police officers as they were about to leave and shared a video of a boy in a diaper recorded with her doorbell camera.
Former Tulsa, Oklahoma, police sergeant Sean “Sticks” Larkin, a “Live” analyst, stated, “That’s absolutely tough to see.” He said, “You could see the kid was clearly pulling the trigger. Had it been chambered, loaded, it could have been a horrific, horrific situation.”
After returning to Osborne’s apartment, the officers discovered a 9-millimeter Smith & Wesson hidden inside a closed desk roll-top.
“Live” analyst Curtis Wilson, a sheriff’s deputy in Richland County, South Carolina, said he doubts the child would have placed the gun there randomly.
“The way that it was placed in this dresser, the way it was actually strategically placed in there and the top down, it’s unlikely that a little kid was able to do that,” he said.
According to court records, Osborne was arrested on suspicion of felony supplying a handgun to a child and neglecting a dependent. The Marion County Prosecutor’s Office has scheduled his initial court appearance for Thursday.
Before the gun was found, Osborne told police he could not own any firearms as an ex-convict.
