Student dies after playing with dad’s service gun in Bulacan school

CITY OF SAN JOSE DEL MONTE, Bulacan — A 12-year-old son of a policeman died Thursday after he accidentally shot himself when he fired the service gun of his father while playing with it inside the toilet of a school in this city.

Colonel Relly Arnedo, Bulacan police director, said the victim was a Grade 6 student and the son of a policeman assigned to Camp Crame in Quezon City.

Arnedo said the boy, who was not named in their report, managed to bring his father’s Baretta service firearm to the Benito Nieto Elementary School in Barangay Muzon without his parents noticing it.

The boy “surreptitiously” took his father’s gun from inside their cabinet and brought it to the school, the Bulacan police said.

The boy arrived at the school at 5:40 a.m. and went inside a restroom, where he started playing with the gun.

Suddenly, a bullet burst from the service firearm and hit his chin.

Colonel Ronaldo Lumactod, City of San Jose del Monte police chief, said the bullet went through the nasal area of the boy, and hit the toilet’s ceiling.

The victim, who was taken to the nearest hospital, was first declared to be in stable condition but later died at 1 p.m.

He was in critical condition from 6 a.m. to 9 a.m., Lumactod said.

“He was safe, but in the CT scan to determine if there is another foreign object in his body, it was discovered that there was a shrapnel that invaded his brain, so at around 1 p.m., he expired,” he told INQUIRER.net over the phone.

A report from the Bulacan provincial police said the bullet hit the student’s chin and “exited at the nose portion” of his head.

Colonel Rederico Maranan, public information chief of the Philippine National Poliee, said the director of the Bulacan police was instructed to investigate the incident. INQ

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