Police caution parents as another child hurt by gunfire - WSMV Channel 4
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For the fourth time in three months, a young child has hurt himself after firing a gun in Clarksville. In half the cases, the gun owner had actually taken hours of safety training to avoid things just like this.
Deshana Lisenbee, 24, was arrested Saturday around 7 p.m. after her unattended 1-year-old son shot himself in the hand with a gun that was left on the coffee table in Lisenbee's apartment on Terminal Road, police said.
The child was treated at Gateway Medical Center and is expected to be OK.
"Trying to get that message across repeatedly, and then you have another incident happen, you question what else can we do to try to make people aware or not to be nonchalant about the handling of firearms," said Clarksville Police Spokesman Ofc. Jim Knoll.
What is frustrating to police is that Lisenbee, along with parents in other recent cases, was a handgun carry permit holder, meaning she was required to have eight hours of gun safety training.
"You are told to safeguard the firearm, but for that particular moment, for whatever reason they chose not to heed that," Knoll said.
According to the latest national statistics, accidental gun discharges resulted in 16 deaths of children under age 5 in 2009. However, more than 3,500 children and teens have injured themselves because of accidentally firing a gun.
None of the four children injured in the Clarksville shootings has died, but one is still in the hospital with serious injuries.
Knoll is just hoping parents will listen and do the right thing when it comes to safely storing guns.
"A lot of times people know what to do, but they are just not doing it. And there's the big difference," Knoll said.
Charges have been filed in two of the four recent Clarksville incidents, including Lisenbee, who was charged with aggravated child abuse.
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