Boy, 4, Accidentally Shoots 3-Year-Old Girl; Father Arrested

A 4-year-old boy accidentally shot his 3-year-old cousin in the face after picking up a handgun that his father had placed on top of a baby stroller, police said Wednesday.

The shooting, which the child survived when the bullet lodged in her sinus, brought the number of shootings of youths by other youths in Orange County to four this year.

“We’ve had older kids shoot younger, but I certainly can’t remember a case with a combination this young,” Sgt. Mike Handfield said. At 4 years, a child is “just getting the dexterity to pick up a gun. I can’t remember any younger than this.”

Police said the shooting occurred about 8:30 p.m. Tuesday when the boy’s father, Richard Granados, 24, of Garden Grove decided to take the children for a short walk. Granados had just placed the .22-caliber handgun on top of an empty stroller and covered it with a jacket when the three stepped outside the girl’s house, police said.

When Granados turned his back, the boy lifted the weapon and it discharged.

Hearing the pop of the gun, Granados spun to see his niece, Marlina Fernandez, screaming and running down the street with a bloody nose, Handfield said.

The bullet entered her left nostril and lodged in her sinus cavity, where it narrowly missed damaging her brain, Handfield said.

“She was just lucky. It was just pure luck,” Handfield said. “If the bullet had penetrated more, it would have penetrated the brain. . . . It’s just one of those things where it was lucky that it entered the way it did. Usually a .22 will ricochet.”

Surgeons at Western Medical Center-Santa Ana planned to remove the bullet Wednesday night.

Police, who arrested Granados, will ask the district attorney’s office today to charge him with violation of a year-old state law designed to punish gun owners or users who leave a weapon in a place accessible to children.

Granados, who is unemployed, told officers he is a former gang member and had bought the gun from a man on the street for protection, Handfield said. Granados told police “he had problems with other gang members or had been threatened” and had begun carrying a gun regularly, Handfield said.

Granados’ situation apparently serves to highlight a fact of life for some former gang members, police said.

“Gang members or ex-gang members oftentimes have done something” to a rival gang “and therefore it’s a never-ending cycle of retaliation,” Handfield said. Even after leaving a gang, some people may carry weapons out of fear, police said. “It may be a paranoia; it may be a reality,” Handfield said.

The Garden Grove incident followed by one day the fatal shooting of a 17-year-old by a 14-year-old friend, police said. Investigators determined that slaying was accidental and the 14-year-old will not face charges.

In February, an 11-year-old girl in Westminster was critically injured by a shotgun blast when a male playmate loaded the weapon and fired.

And last month, a Garden Grove High School student pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter for arming himself with his older brother’s handgun and killing a 9-year-old friend.