One day this February, a 4-year-old DeKalb County boy took a bullet in an apartment on Bouldercrest Road.
The boy told a social worker he’d shot himself while playing with a gun; his uncle, who took him to the hospital, claimed it was a drive-by shooting and that the child often made up stories, a police report said.
The child's condition isn't known, but he survived and was treated at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta's Hughes Spalding Hospital.
However it happened, police now allege that the child’s father, Shawn Darin Smith, 26, didn’t seek any help after the shooting.
A warrant released Monday indicates police believe the child accidentally shot himself and the uncle, Jeffrey Johnson II, was the one making up a story.
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Police haven’t said exactly how they believe the shooting happened.
It isn’t clear how Johnson got involved. He claimed he’d been babysitting the boy when the shooting happened. A police report from the Feb. 19 incident makes no mention of the father.
Smith and Johnson both remain in the DeKalb jail, Smith charged with child cruelty, Johnson with false report of a crime and child cruelty.
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