Local news reports
Lydell Hartford, Jr., freshman linebacker for the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff football team died yesterday in a fatal accident in Waggaman, Louisiana. Coaches and administrators at UAPB are saddened by the details of the accident released by the Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office (JPSO).
According to authorities, a 16-year-old boy identified as Hartford's friend was playing with a gun and accidentally shot and killed him early Tuesday morning. Hartford, 20, was pronounced dead after suffering a gunshot wound to the neck, according to Glen T. Boyd, spokesman for the JPSO.
Hartford and the teen were in his mother's 2012 Chevrolet Camaro, parked in the driveway of Hartford's home, Boyd said. The teen discovered a .38-caiber pistol that also belonged to Hartford's mother inside the car and began to remove the bullets. Hartford warned him to stop, but the teen ignored Hartford and kept unloading bullets until he thought the gun was empty. The boy squeezed the trigger three or four times until the pistol fired a bullet that hit Hartford in the neck. The teen pulled him out of the vehicle and laid him on the driveway. Hartford died about an hour later, Boyd said.
The 16-year-old boy was arrested and booked with negligent homicide. The Sheriff's Office is not identifying the teen because he is a juvenile.
The gun owner should have been arrested along with the young shooter. Is leaving an unsecured gun in a car allowed in the State of Arkansas?
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