A three-year-old girl in Omaha, Nebraska, accidentally shot herself in the face with a gun found under a couch cushion, according to court documents. Omaha Police arrived at the scene at 1:46 p.m. on Saturday, April 19, 2025, and declared the child dead.
The child’s father, Phuc Le, 44, has been arrested and charged with cocaine possession and child abuse resulting in death. Douglas County Court Judge Marcena Hendrix released Le on his recognizance, with a court hearing set for May 6.
The event occurred while the mother and three of the girl’s siblings were home. The Omaha Police Department’s Child Special Victims Unit is investigating the case, which includes disturbing revelations about the family’s gun storage practices.
Court records indicate that the girl’s eight-year-old sibling told police the gun was often left out when their father was absent. The child mentioned that Le typically stored the weapon under a pillow in the basement where he slept, and it was frequently seen on the couch or a side table.
The mother confirmed to officers that she knew Le regularly kept the gun under a couch cushion while sleeping on it in the basement at night.
The eight-year-old recounted that the three-year-old discovered the gun under a couch cushion on Saturday afternoon. The older sibling initially removed it but returned it to its place. The younger child was fatally shot in the face after picking up the gun again while the older sibling tried to intervene.
Le told police he had hidden the gun under the couch cushion before leaving for work around 11 a.m. that day. Documents reveal he admitted to not securing the weapon in the large safe in the basement, despite claiming it was his usual practice.
Le maintained that the gun’s chamber was always empty and that he never left the ammunition clip inside. However, records show that he could not explain how the weapon became loaded or why it was not placed in the safe.
According to the court affidavit, Le provided police with the combination to his safe. Inside, officers found three rifles and a small amount of cocaine. Le admitted to using some of the drugs before work on the morning of the shooting, but stated he was holding them for a friend. He allowed the police to store the firearms at the department.
This case highlights a national issue of child access to firearms. The Children’s Safety Network reports that one in three homes with children has firearms, with 22 million children living in such environments. While most firearms are locked or stored unloaded, 2.6 million children reside in homes with unlocked, loaded guns or unlocked firearms stored with ammunition.
Research indicates many children can find and handle firearms without their parents’ knowledge. Three out of four children aged five to 14 know where guns are hidden in the home, and one in three have handled a firearm. Even children as young as three can be strong enough to pull a handgun trigger.
The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) notes that firearms are now the leading cause of death for children and teens in the United States. The AAP advocates for removing guns from homes to protect children from gun violence. If guns are kept, they should be stored unloaded, locked, and with ammunition stored separately.
Recent research by Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions found that child access prevention (CAP) firearm storage policies effectively reduce youth gun suicide rates and firearm-related unintentional injuries and homicides. As of January 2025, 27 states and Washington, D.C. have CAP or safe storage laws.
The policies are most effective when requiring parents or guardians to store firearms unloaded and locked for children aged 16 and younger. Researchers found that CAP laws decreased suicide rates by up to 14% based on mortality data from 1990 to 2020.
Currently, 24 states have policies mandating secure storage or preventing child access to firearms, while 26 states do not. These policies typically apply when a gun is not under the owner’s immediate control and define a “child” as someone under 18, with some variations.
Nebraska, where the incident occurred, has child access prevention laws, though specific requirements vary across states. Most state laws do not mandate storage to prevent access by other prohibited individuals, such as felons or domestic abusers.
Experts recommend several practices for responsible gun ownership: obtaining firearms training, practicing skills regularly, storing firearms properly to prevent unauthorized access (especially from children), acknowledging that gun owners represent the broader gun-owning community, purchasing high-quality firearms and equipment, and maintaining firearms to ensure proper function.
