The tensile strength necessary to pull the trigger of a nine-millimeter Kel-Tec firearm is roughly 5½ to 6½ pounds. That trivia became important this week to Fresno police as they investigated how a toddler could have shot his own mother.
Authorities arrested an 18-year-old gun owner and were scrutinizing how a 2½-year-old child found the weapon and fired it once, striking and killing his mother Friday evening.
Fresno police booked Andrew Sanchez, boyfriend of the victim, Jessinya Mina, on charges of felony child endangerment and felony criminal storage of a firearm.
He was freed on bail, according to Lt. Paul Cervantes, Fresno Police Street Violence Bureau commander, while the police continue to investigate the circumstances of the shooting.
“As you can imagine,” Cervantes said at a news conference this week, “it’s difficult because we’re having to wrestle with the idea that it’s even conceivable that a 2½-year-old child would have sufficient strength to manipulate a firearm.”
Attempts to reach Sanchez were not successful.
Mina was the mother of the young boy who authorities believe fired the shot and an 8-month-old girl. Both are now staying with her parents.
The family’s plan last Friday evening was to go out, Cervantes said.
The four were relaxing in the bedroom of their apartment complex a few blocks away from Fresno State around 5:30 p.m. when the toddler took hold of the weapon loaded with a single round, according to Cervantes.
Mina, who was lying in bed, was struck in the upper body, according to authorities.
How exactly the child reached the gun is still under investigation. Cervantes noted that the weapon was improperly stored in the family bedroom.
Police responded around 5:38 p.m. Officers arrived just as Sanchez was attempting to drive his dying girlfriend to a nearby trauma center. They stopped him outside the Butterfly Grove Apartments.
They and paramedics rendered emergency aid to the victim, according to authorities, and attempted to transport her to the hospital. She died en route, Cervantes said.
Sanchez was interviewed by detectives and eventually arrested.
Cervantes said Sanchez had no criminal record, nor was he part of a gang. How he acquired the weapon is still under investigation.
The gun did not have any external safety features that might have prevented the shooting, Cervantes noted.
At the news conference, Cervantes advised children to alert adults of any unattended weapons.
“Unfortunately, in this case,” he said, “we’re talking about a 2½-year-old child who probably didn’t have enough notion to understand what was happening.”