Auburndale man charged with failing to secure gun in boy's accidental fatal shooting
An Auburndale man faces prosecution for failing to safely store a firearm after a 12-year-old boy accidentally shot himself in December.
The State Attorney’s Office for the 10th Judicial Circuit filed a court document in April charging Michael K. Louis with the crime, a second-degree misdemeanor. Louis, 29, lived in Lakeland at the time of the December incident.
The Lakeland Police Department reported that the boy was visiting a 13-year-old friend for a sleepover on Dec. 16 in the 5500 block of Starling Loop in North Lakeland. The two boys found a loaded handgun inside a vehicle in the garage, LPD said, and as the 12-year-old was handling the weapon the gun fired one round, hitting him.
The boy died after being transported to Tampa General Hospital, LPD reported. The agency did not release the boy’s name, citing a state law that shields the identities of crime victims.
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The charging document says that Louis should have known that someone younger than 16 was likely to gain access to the gun without a parent’s permission and without adult supervision. Florida law requires gun owners to keep weapons in a locked container or in a location that a reasonable person would consider to be secure.
In an affidavit from LPD, an officer wrote that Louis and his fiancée lived in a family relationship at the Starling Loop home with the woman’s son. Louis and his fiancée were working out of town at the time of the incident, the report said, and the 13-year-old boy’s grandmother was supervising him.
The grandmother was at work when the boy invited his friend for an overnight visit without notifying any of his guardians, the affidavit said. The victim falsely told his mother that an adult uncle of his friend would be at the home, the officer wrote.
When the victim’s mother dropped him off, the boys told her that the uncle had gone to the store and would return soon, the affidavit said.
The boys entered Louis’ unlocked Chrysler vehicle, which was parked in an enclosed garage, and smoked marijuana, the affidavit said. They left the vehicle and went inside the house before returning to the garage.
According to the 13-year-old boy, the victim found the handgun in the map pocket of the driver’s side door of the Chrysler. The boy left the car and began playing with the gun, waving it and pointing it at his friend, who urged him to put it back in the vehicle, the report said.
The victim was out of sight of his friend when the 13-year-old heard a single gunshot, the affidavit said. The boy found his friend on the passenger seat of the car, bleeding from his mouth, the report said.
Police found a Taurus G2 .40 caliber gun, which Louis had bought in 2021, the report said. The gun had no lock.
In a voluntary interview, Louis told an officer that he normally kept the gun in a shoe in his closet. He had worked as a driver for Uber in Orlando the previous night and taken the gun for protection, leaving it in the vehicle afterward, the affidavit said.
Louis and his fiancée left on the day of the incident to work out of state as truck drivers, the report said.
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The case has been assigned to Judge Mary Catherine Green. A pretrial hearing is scheduled for Aug. 23.
The victim’s mother created a GoFundMe campaign four days after the tragedy. In the introduction, she described the boy as “smart, funny, and goofy,” saying that he loved basketball and fishing.
“He loved with all his heart and protected me and his 3 sisters fiercely,” the mother wrote. “He did everything with so much energy and joy to experience life and he wasn't afraid to work for it.”
Gary White can be reached at gary.white@theledger.com or 863-802-7518. Follow on Twitter @garywhite13.
This article originally appeared on The Ledger: Auburndale man charged in accidental shooting of boy who found gun
