Parents won’t face charges after 3-year-old shoots himself in Port Royal, police say
Police will not seek charges against the parents of a 3-year-old boy in Port Royal who died after he found a gun in his home and shot himself earlier this month.
Thomas “Juice” Parker III, 3, of Port Royal, died of a gunshot wound at the Oak Hill Terrace apartments on the afternoon of Dec. 3, according to a Port Royal Police Department report.
“We do not anticipate any charges,” though the investigation is ongoing, according to Capt. John Griffith with the department.
“It is my understanding that the gun was found by the child” in a kitchen drawer, Griffith wrote via email.
Officers responded to the apartment complex at 4:30 p.m. after receiving a call from Thomas’ father, Thomas Parker Jr., telling police that his son had “attempted to shoot himself,” police said in the report.
When police arrived, they heard yelling from inside the home and found Parker sitting on the floor “visibly distraught” while on the phone with dispatch. The child was on the floor next to his father, the report said. EMS personnel pronounced the child dead at the scene.
The child’s 1-year-old sister was at the home as well.
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Thomas ‘Juice’ Parker
Thomas Parker III was lovingly known as “PJ” and “Juice” by friends and family, according to an online memorial Facebook post for the 3-year-old.
He wanted to play the drums and be the next church musician, the post said.
“He was a happy baby and loved by so many,” the post said.
He took on the role of an older brother and taught his sister the alphabet, new words and numbers. Parker was “her first teacher,” the post said.
He loved eating Oreo cookies, Slim Jims, hot dogs and especially oatmeal pies. The post said Parker was a student at Beaufort Elementary Head Start.
The family did not respond to requests for interviews from The Island Packet and Beaufort Gazette.
Juvenile shootings
In an unrelated but similar case in May 2018, a 3-year-old boy accidentally shot himself in the head at a mobile home in Walterboro. The Colleton County Sheriff’s Office charged the boy’s father with two counts of unlawful conduct towards a child. The S.C. statute penalizes a guardian or parent who places the child at unreasonable risk of harm, causes bodily harm to the child or abandons the child.
As recently as two days after Parker’s death, the Savannah Police Department reported a toddler found a loaded gun and shot and killed a nearby adult in a Savannah neighborhood.
An autopsy was scheduled for Parker on Dec. 7 at the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston.
Beaufort County Coroner David Ott declined to release any details about the autopsy or current investigation.
“It is a juvenile [case], and we’re not going to release [information] on it,” Ott said.
The Port Royal Police Department initially refused to release information a week after the shooting, but, on Tuesday, the department released the incident and supplemental reports.
Ott cited the S.C. Law Enforcement Division and the state Child Fatality Advisory Committee, which makes all records related to juvenile death secret and exempt from the Freedom of Information Act. Ott said child fatalities in the state are investigated by this body and therefore fall under its rules.
Jay Bender, a S.C. attorney who works on public records cases, said state case law does not support hiding information on a child’s death.
“There is no right of privacy that survives a death,” Bender said.
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