On August 1, 2021, a two-year-old boy in Milwaukee was killed by a single gunshot while in a bedroom with his four-year-old brother. Their father, 26-year-old Giovanni Smith, was elsewhere in the house and heard a pop; he found the younger child fatally wounded and the four-year-old holding the gun and crying. The child was pronounced dead at home near 9th and Madison.

Investigators reported the firearm was a 9mm Taurus owned by the children’s grandmother, who had given it to her son for safekeeping about six weeks earlier. Accounts differ on how the loaded gun became accessible: Giovanni Smith first said he kept it under a mattress with the safety engaged, while the four-year-old said he found it on top of a speaker. Smith later acknowledged he might have left the firearm in that location.

Giovanni Smith was taken into custody and charged with one count of child neglect resulting in death; bail was set at $5,000 and the maximum sentence on the charge was reported as 25 years. Does anyone have information about the household circumstances or how the firearm was stored in the weeks before August 1, 2021?