PASADENA, Md. — We're learning more about how a 7-year-old second-grader was able to bring a loaded gun into an elementary school classroom, and accidentally shoot himself.
It happened Wednesday morning at Freetown Elementary School in Pasadena.
Nine students and a teacher were in the classroom when the child began manipulating the gun causing it to fire.
Police say the child sustained a non-life threatening gunshot wound to the finger. Luckily no others were hurt, as the bullet ricocheted from the classroom floor into a cabinet.
Thankfully the teacher was able to safely secure the weapon.
Turns out the Glock model 27 handgun was registered to 34-year-old Eashan Stefanski, the live-in boyfriend of the child's mother.
Stefanski, who is an active Staff Sergeant with the U.S. Army's Baltimore based Recruiting Battalion, reportedly told investigators he kept several firearms in his bedroom.
"He told me that he keeps one handgun in his car, one handgun under his mattress, three handguns and a rifle in a safe in his closet with gun locks on them," Anne Arundel County Police detectives wrote in charging documents.
After receiving Stefanski's permission to inspect how the weapons were being stored, detectives found two unloaded handguns and one rifle in boxes with locks on them, but the keys to the locks were also present.
Detectives later discovered where the gun came from that the child took with them to school.
"I also found a gun box missing its gun; but containing a gun lock, the gun lock keys, and loaded magazines," detectives explain in charging documents. "This was the box that contained the Glock 27 that was used in the shooting at Freetown Elementary."
In deciding to seek charges against Stefanski, detectives concluded "the firearms were not properly stored to keep them from children."
Stefanski has since been issued a criminal summons for leaving a loaded firearm accessible to a minor.
The charge comes with no jail time, and a maximum fine of $1,000.
It's all police said they could charge him with under Maryland's current gun storage laws.
In a statement to WMAR-2 News, an Army spokesperson said Stefanski's "been suspended of his recruiting duties, pending the outcome of the ongoing law enforcement investigation."
Here's an In Focus look at the law in question
