MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, Fla. – Miami-Dade police arrested a convicted felon late Sunday night after sources said a 4-year-old girl’s younger brother shot her in the head with an unattended gun, critically wounding her earlier that day.
Quavanta Ennels, 25, was charged with felon in possession of a firearm. Sources said he’s the boyfriend of the victim’s mother; both were in the house at the time of the shooting.
The shooting happened at around 2:40 p.m. at Ennels’ residence in the 8100 block of Northwest 21st Avenue in the county’s unincorporated West Little River area.
According to police, the girl and her siblings were in a bedroom, where Ennels had left the Taurus 9 mm pistol in a backpack.
That’s when sources said the victim’s 3-year-old brother took the illegally-purchased gun out and shot her in the head.
Medics rushed the girl to Jackson Memorial Hospital’s Ryder Trauma Center, where she was “fighting for her life” Monday morning, Detective Andre Martin, a Miami-Dade Police Department spokesperson, said.
Ennels was convicted of armed robbery in May 2016 and sentenced to four years in prison, but was released in April 2018, according to an arrest report.
Ennels was being held in the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center on a $7,500 bond as of Monday morning, as police said they continue to investigate.
“There may be charges forthcoming for culpable negligence by leaving a firearm within easy access of a minor and unsafe storage of a firearm from a minor,” prosecutors said during his bond court hearing Monday.