Garden Grove Boy, 4, Shoots Cousin, 3, in Face

A 4-year-old boy took a handgun from the top of a baby stroller, where his father had placed it, and accidentally shot his 3-year-old cousin in the face, police said Wednesday.

The shooting, which the child survived when the bullet lodged in her sinus, brought to four the number of shootings so far this year of children or teen-agers by other youths in Orange County, but this apparently was the youngest pair.

“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 4-year-old boy’s father, Richard Granados, 24, of Garden Grove decided to take his son and 3-year-old niece, Marlina Fernandez, 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 his niece’s house on Anita Place in Garden Grove, police said.

When Granados turned his back, his son lifted the weapon and fired.

Hearing the pop of the gun, Granados spun to see Marlina 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,” he said. “It was just pure luck. 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 was 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.

Mando Fernandez, Granados’ brother-in-law, said he was not sure why Granados carried a gun.

“I don’t think he was afraid for his life,” he said. Other family members contacted Wednesday declined comment.

The Garden Grove shooting marked at least the fourth such instance involving youths in Orange County so far this year.

On Tuesday, a 14-year-old boy accidentally shot and killed his 17-year-old friend, police said. Investigators determined that the shooting was accidental and that the 14-year-old will not have to face charges.

In Westminster, an 11-year-old girl was critically injured in February by a shotgun blast when a male playmate loaded the weapon and fired. Police released the boy to the custody of his parents and forwarded their findings to the district attorney’s office. The deputy district attorney’s investigator reviewing the case could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

In Anaheim, a Garden Grove High School student armed with his older brother’s handgun shot and killed a 9-year-old friend. The student pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter last month and was sentenced to nine months in Orange County Juvenile Hall in Orange.

Granados was booked on suspicion of negligent storage of a firearm and was held in Orange County Jail in Santa Ana in lieu of $10,000 bail. He is scheduled for arraignment today in Municipal Court in Westminster.

GUNSHOT VICTIM DIES: Teen-ager shot by friend dies; boy won’t face charges. B1