Police: Boy hid on playground, ditched gun before toddler shot herself

More details are emerging about the 16-year-old boy accused of leaving a gun on a northeast Las Vegas preschool playground, which then led to a 2-year-old girl picking up the weapon and shooting herself in the chest, police said.

According to a Metropolitan Police Department arrest report, T’Shaun Rucker jumped over a wall and hid in the corner of the playground at Foundations Preschool, on Nov. 3 at about 10:40 a.m.

Rucker, of Las Vegas, according to the arrest report, was recorded on the preschool’s surveillance video dropping what is believed to have been the gun on the playground.

He is accused of shooting another man after the two exchanged hostile words, and the man punched Rucker, on an RTC bus just minutes before Rucker ditched the gun on the playground, the report said.

The man was taken to University Medical Center after the bullet lacerated his lung, the report stated.

According to the arrest report, Rucker then fled the bus, running south on Nellis Boulevard toward Owens Avenue. The preschool is at the southwest corner of Nellis and Owens.

Minutes later he was seen jumping over the wall as a preschool teacher and nine children came out to the playground.

The girl who unintentionally used the gun to shoot herself, police said, had gone to the corner where Rucker had been. Other children came and went from the corner, and the girl appeared to have been playing with another child.

The police report is heavily redacted, so it’s difficult to determine all of the details of what is alleged to have happened.

At 10:45 a.m. Nov. 3, the toddler picked up the gun and fired it into her chest, according to the arrest report.

The preschool teacher heard the gunshot, smelled gunpowder and looked over to see the girl on the ground with the gun next to her hand. The teacher ran over and saw that the girl’s nose was bleeding. The teacher grabbed the gun, put it on a wall, then saw that the girl had a gunshot wound to her chest.

The teacher picked up the girl and ran her to inside of the school, telling another teacher to call 911.

In an interview with police, the child’s mother said the school had given the mother an update at 10 a.m. that the girl’s diaper had been changed.

Not long after that, the report said, the mother got a phone call saying that the girl was being taken to the hospital. The teacher called again to tell the mother that the girl had been shot and that she was being taken to University Medical Center.

Rucker was detained by patrol officers just south of the preschool, the report said.

According to the arrest report, the girl was in “extremely critical condition” after the gunshot caused her to suffer severe lung bruising and a left lung hemothorax, which occurs when “blood collects in the cavity between the lung and the rib cage keeping the lung from being able to inflate,” the report stated.

The girl’s current condition wasn’t clear. Metro spokesperson Officer Luis Vidal said Monday he didn’t have an update on the case.

Contact Brett Clarkson at bclarkson@reviewjournal.com.