Man Who Shot Daughter Begins 3-Year Prison Term
A Santa Ana man who accidentally shot and wounded his 4-year-old daughter while unloading his gun, then fled to his relatives’ home in Long Beach, began a three-year prison term Friday for endangering his child.
Bartolo Quintana, 29, pleaded guilty Thursday in Orange County Superior Court to a felony charge of child endangerment and four counts of illegally possessing a firearm, Deputy Dist. Atty. Debora Lloyd said. Superior Court Judge John Watson then sentenced him to three years in state prison.
Quintana had been barred from owning a gun since 1987 because of a felony conviction of brandishing a gun, Lloyd said.
According to his statements to authorities, Quintana was unloading his .44-magnum revolver in the pre-dawn hours of May 9 at his home in the 2600 block of West McFadden Avenue when the gun went off. Bullet fragments hit his daughter Flerida, who was sleeping on the bed with Quintana’s wife, Maria.
Maria Quintana, 34, called police, but her husband had fled by the time officers arrived. Two days later, officers found him in Long Beach and arrested him as he tried to escape through a back door. The gun was recovered at his cousin’s Garden Grove home.
Flerida required surgery to her forehead from the bullet wound but she apparently did not suffer brain damage, authorities said.
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