A young child between the ages of 3 and 5 died Friday night after getting hold of an unsecured firearm and shooting themself at an apartment complex in South Fort Worth. Police officers were called about 7:45 p.m. to Patriot Pointe Apartments in the 2100 block of Revolutionary Way, off Southeast Loop 820, after reports of the shooting. The child was rushed to a hospital, where they were later pronounced dead.
According to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, police believe the shooting happened in a patio area of the complex, based on their preliminary investigation. At least one adult was present at the time, though detectives are still working to determine who the gun belongs to and how the child managed to get hold of it. Those two questions remain unresolved as the investigation continues.
Officer Urges Residents to Lock Up Firearms
Fort Worth police officer Buddy Calzada, who confirmed details of the incident and its location, encouraged residents to secure their firearms and use gun locks in the aftermath of the shooting. The department reported that the child died following the shooting at the apartment complex, but has not released further details about the adult present or the weapon's origin as detectives continue their work.
Fort Worth police maintain a community safety program that offers free cable-style gun locks to residents at all patrol divisions, including the Bob Bolen Public Safety Complex and the Riverside patrol station, through a partnership with Project ChildSafe. Officers regularly point to these free locks during community outreach following local shootings, though it's unclear whether that resource factors into this particular case.
A Pattern of Unsecured Guns Reaching Children
This is not the first time an unsecured firearm has led to tragedy in Fort Worth. In April, a 16-year-old boy was killed inside an apartment complex on South Hulen Street when another teenager accidentally discharged an unsecured firearm, and investigators in that case also had difficulty determining where the weapon came from. Back in March 2023, a young girl in Fort Worth was critically injured after retrieving an unsecured firearm from a drawer at a home on Aiken Lane and accidentally shooting herself in the chest; she survived after being rushed to Cook Children's Medical Center.
Cook Children's Medical Center treated 121 unintentional firearm injuries and five pediatric firearm fatalities between 2024 and 2026, according to Cook Children's Health Care System. Hospital officials and Fort Worth police have framed unintentional youth gun injuries as a critical local public health crisis. A 2024 Community Health Needs Assessment by the health system found that 1 in 5 gun-owning households across its eight-county service area, which includes Tarrant County, have children living in homes where firearms are not consistently locked away.
Statewide Numbers and the Legal Gap
Texas has repeatedly ranked among the top states nationally for unintentional shootings involving children, according to Everytown for Gun Safety, which recorded 16 unintentional shootings by children in the state in 2026, following 36 such shootings in 2023 that resulted in 14 deaths and 23 injuries. Tarrant County Medical Examiner records show that 38 children in Fort Worth died from gunshot wounds over the five years leading up to 2026, though the vast majority of those deaths were classified as homicides or suicides rather than accidents.
Under Texas Penal Code Section 46.13, storing or leaving an unsecured, loaded firearm where a child younger than 17 can access it constitutes the crime of making a firearm accessible to a child, according to the Texas Criminal Defense Group. If a child gains access and causes death or serious bodily injury, the offense is elevated to a Class A misdemeanor punishable by up to a $4,000 fine and up to one year in jail. Texas law considers any gun loaded with ammunition to be readily dischargeable regardless of whether a round is chambered, meaning storage practices, not just the presence of a bullet in the chamber, can trigger liability.
The Fort Worth City Council declared August as Gun Safety Awareness Month in partnership with Cook Children's Aim for Safety program back in 2023, making Fort Worth one of four Texas cities to establish the annual designation as a reminder to keep guns locked and separated from ammunition. Texas law also requires public school districts statewide to distribute educational information to parents each year on safe firearm storage practices and the legal penalties under Penal Code 46.13, a mandate established under House Bill 3. Detectives in Fort Worth continue to investigate who owned the gun found at Patriot Pointe Apartments and how the child was able to access it.
