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Parents, relative arrested in 4-year-old's shooting death

FLICKR/TONY WEBSTER

A 4-year-old boy was fatally shot at a home on Cindy Lane in Gastonia on Tuesday afternoon, according to the Gaston County Police Department.

Police received a call at 4:22 p.m Tuesday about a shooting. They arrived to find a child suffering from a gunshot wound. First responders attempted life-saving measures, but the boy died.

GCPD detectives concluded that the child’s mother, father and another relative in the home failed to safely secure a gun, which the boy and his siblings found. Someone fired the weapon and it struck the 4-year-old, police said.

The Gaston County District Attorney's Office decided to charge all three adults — Savannah Brehm and Hector Mendoza, both 22, and Keith Strughill, 21— with involuntary manslaughter, felony child abuse and a misdemeanor of storing a firearm in a manner accessible to a minor.

All three were in Gaston County jail pending a first appearance hearing.

GCPD said the investigation is ongoing and are asking anyone with information to call 704-861-8000.

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Kenny is a Maryland native who began his career in media as a sportswriter at Tuskegee University, covering SIAC sports working for the athletic department and as a sports correspondent for the Tuskegee Campus Digest. Following his time at Tuskegee, he was accepted to the NASCAR Diversity Internship Program as a Marketing Intern for The NASCAR Foundation in Daytona Beach, Florida in 2017.