Neighbors are left devastated after a 2-year-old girl died after she apparently shot herself after finding a gun inside of a northwest Indiana mobile home.
“It was awful. It made me sick to my stomach that this happened,” Felicia Snodgrass says.
Snodgrass lives next door, and on Tuesday morning at approximately 11 a.m., she says she heard a loud booming sound.
“I was like ‘oh my God, that can’t be good,’” she recalls. “I had seen them rush the baby into the ambulance there, and I was like ‘oh wow, I hope the baby is okay.’”
Police say that immediate aid was administered to the child, now identified as Grace Rodriguez. She was rushed to a hospital in Portage before being flown to a trauma center in Illinois, where she was later pronounced dead.
Investigators believe that she found a gun inside of the residence, and it went off when she picked it up.
Police say that the girl was home with her mother, who called 911 after the shooting.
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What is not known at this time is where the gun was located, or how the girl was able to gain access to the weapon.
Portage police say it will be up to the county’s prosecutor’s office to determine whether criminal charges will be filed.
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Snodgrass, who has two children of her own, says that the shooting is a reminder of the importance of gun safety, and says that her heart goes out to the young girl and her family.
“Check your guns. Make sure your safety lock is on, and put them behind lock and key,” she says. “I understand you want to protect your family, but you gotta have that safety on. There’s rules for a reason.”
The investigation remains ongoing, and results of an autopsy performed Thursday were not immediately available.
