Father arrested in his 4-year-old son’s shooting of neighbor

CNN Wire Service

A New Jersey father of a 4-year-old boy who fatally shot a 6-year-old neighbor in the head was arrested Monday night for having unsecured weapons accessible to children, the Atlantic County Prosecutor’s Office said.

Anthony Senatore, 33, was charged with six counts of endangering the welfare of children and a disorderly person’s offense for enabling access by minors to a loaded firearm, Prosecutor Jim McClain said.

Senatore’s 4-year-old son was playing in a yard on April 8 when he went inside and retrieved his father’s loaded .22-caliber rifle from a bedroom. When he came back out, he fired a single shot that struck 6-year-old Brandon Holt in the head.

Brandon was taken to the Jersey Shore University Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead the next day.

In addition to the loaded rifle, four other firearms were found in Senatore’s bedroom, all unsecured, close to ammunition and accessible to his three children, the prosecutor’s office said.

Senatore is being held on $100,000 bail.