OCEAN VIEW, DELAWARE (8/30/2015) A 2-year-old girl was shot in a home south of Ocean View early today when a man was showing his wife a handgun he had just obtained and it discharged, Delaware State Police said this afternoon.
The incident happened about 1:10 a.m. in the 37000 block of Muddy Neck Road.
The girl, wounded in the left leg, was flown by state police helicopter to Nemours/A.I. DuPont Hospital for Children in Rockland, where she is being treated, police said.
The father, Josemph M. Jenkins Jr., 38, was charged with assault, possession of a firearm during commission of a felony and three counts of endangering the welfare of a child.
Police said Jenkins and his wife had reported a burglary about 9 p.m. Saturday, with his shotgun and some cash stolen from their home.
After troopers left the home, police said, Jenkins went to a friend’s house where he obtained a .40 caliber handgun and returned to his home about 1 a.m.
His wife woke up from sleeping on the living room floor, police said, while their three children – girls ages 2 and 6 and a boy age 10 – were asleep on a sofa nearby.
Jenkins sat on the floor next to his wife to show her the gun, police said, and as he pulled back on the slide and let it go, a bullet fired and struck the 2-year-old.
He was being held at Sussex Correctional Institution in lieu of $41,500 secured bond.
Emergency medical services as well as town police from Ocean View, Bethany and South Bethany also responded.