Man Accidentally Shoots Baby In The Face While Cleaning His Gun

A 36-year-old Georgia man is being charged for accidentally shooting a 17-month-old baby in the face while attempting to clean a gun. Ronnie Howard is facing second-degree murder charges, bumped up from reckless conduct and second-degree cruelty to children.

According to 13WMAZ, the mother of the child was Brooke Carroll, Ronnie Howard’s girlfriend. Howard’s gun jammed and discharged while he was cleaning it and shot the baby in the face. The sheriff’s office reveals that the baby’s name was Victor Carroll.

After the baby was shot, Howard and Carroll drove him to the Navicent Health Medical Center, but the child was pronounced dead at the hospital.

The incident took place at the home of Ronnie Howard and Brooke Carroll, in the Hill-N-Dale Mobile Home Park in Macon, Georgia. The baby was shot in the face at around 3:30 in the afternoon and pronounced dead at 4:01 p.m., according to the coroner of Bibb County, Leon Jones.

“The bullet went under the right eye and exited in the back,” said Jones. “Why in the world would you be cleaning a gun with a child in the house?”

According to the Macon Telegraph, Ronnie Howard was not even supposed to be in possession of the gun. The same judge who sentenced him this year previously forbid Howard from owning a firearm or a dangerous weapon as per a $3,800 bond agreement signed last September.

Ronnie Howard was caught driving with a suspended license and with a 9mm handgun, a loaded magazine, and some marijuana in the car with him. He also had a 9-month-old child strapped in the passenger seat with him at the time, which very likely was Victor Carroll, the baby he would later shoot in the face.

When the judge informed the man that his charge would be upgraded to a second-degree murder charge for shooting the baby, Howard responded in shock.

“Really? Oh, God,” he said, crying. “But it was an accident.”

“I can understand that sir,” Judge Barbara Harris replied. “But you just save that for a later date.”

Ronnie Howard is currently in the Bibb County jail for the death of his girlfriend’s infant. He is being held without bond.

This tragic incident of a baby shot in the face from a loaded weapon is not the only recent case of an infant’s death as a result of careless gun ownership. Read about the toddler who accidentally shot a 1-year-old boy in the head with an unattended weapon.

[Image courtesy of Liz Fabian]