Metro Police Lt. Dave Valenta speaks during a news conference at Metro Police headquarters Thursday, Dec. 17, 2020. Valenta discussed a charge that will be filed against a mother whose three-year-old son died in an accidental shooting last night.
Published Thursday, Dec. 17, 2020 | 12:57 p.m.
Updated Thursday, Dec. 17, 2020 | 6 p.m.
Jasmin Vargas
An untrained gun owner who killed her 3-year-old son Wednesday told detectives that she didn’t know there was a bullet in the chamber when she brandished the weapon, switched the safety off, pointed in front of her and pulled the trigger, hitting the boy, according to a Metro Police arrest report.
Jasmin Vargas, 24, was booked at the Clark County Detention Center on two counts of child abuse and neglect with substantial bodily harm leading to death, Lt. Dave Valenta said Thursday morning.
Vargas told police she was "surprised" the gun fired, not knowing there was a round in the chamber.
The single gunshot blasted about 7 p.m. in the parking lot of an apartment complex in the 1300 block of Arlington Street, near Charleston and Nellis boulevards, police said.
The child was taken by car to Sunrise Hospital and Medical Center, where he died, Valenta said.
Vargas had purchased the gun within the last month and wasn’t familiar with how to operate it, Valenta said. She was handling it “in an appropriate manner, inappropriate place,” he said.
“She just did not understand the paramount responsibility of gun ownership and the dangers,” Valenta said
Citing her “short stature,” Vargas told police that she’d bought her first gun within a month ago, according to her arrest report. She’d gone shooting near Lake Mead Tuesday, where she fired two of the six rounds in the magazine.
On Wednesday night, she was hanging out with two female friends and two children, including her son.
They’d gone out for a walk through the parking lot, police said. During the “stroll,” one of the women told Vargas about recent burglaries in the area, prompting her to go grab her gun and put it in her hooded sweatshirt pouch, police said.
Before the shooting, she pulled out the gun to show it off, Valenta said.
She let one of the women with her hold it and took it back. She told detectives, “there’s nothing in there,” before she pulled the trigger.
Her son, who was standing with another child about 6 feet in front of the group, fell to the ground, police said.
Vargas "refused" to attend an initial court hearing Thursday afternoon, where a judge assigned her a public defender, and set bail at $80,000 under the condition that she does not possess any guns, stays out of trouble, and has no contact with children, according to Las Vegas Justice Court records. She was ordered released on high-level electronic monitoring, though it wasn't clear if she'd posted bond as of Thursday evening.
This was the 10th accidental shooting investigated by Metro this year, including an incident Thanksgiving Day in which a 2-year-old child got ahold of an unsecured gun and killed a 6-year-old sibling, Valenta said.
In that case, the children’s grandfather had stashed his gun in a piece of furniture and left it unattended, police said.
No arrests were made, and the Clark County District Attorney’s Office was reviewing the case, Valenta said.
Metro has also seen an increase in child suicides this year, with five out of 11 of them involving unsecured guns, Valenta said.
Owning guns is a huge responsibility, and there’s no alternative to knowing how to properly handle them, locking them up and installing safety locks on the triggers, Valenta said.
Shortly after the shooting, Valenta spoke to reporters about the pain of having to look into the eyes of the deceased 3-year-old boy.
“Unfortunately, I cannot even speak about the amount of skeletons I’ve seen in my career,” he said. “It never gets any easier, every one is a tragedy, and it takes a while to forget.”
