Three Suspects Arrested After Toddler Shot in the Head

SAN ANGELO, TX – Three suspects were arrested after a 2-year-old was accidently shot in the head in an incident in San Angelo last summer.

According to court documents, the San Angelo Police Department received a call about a gunshot wound to a child on August 24, 2018.   SAPD detectives went to Shannon Medical Center and interviewed the child's mother and two other children. Following the interviews, detectives conducted a consensual search at a residence on N. Schroeder St.  The mother informed police that she had seen Juan Mata, 27, with a black handled firearm. She also informed police that she had not seen what had happened, but had been outside when she heard the gunshot.

Officers learned through interviewing the children that Mata had fallen asleep on the couch when one child removed the gun from his waistband. When the child moved the gun it went off striking the child in the forehead. The defendant slept through the gunshot and was awakened by one of the children. Mata then stood up, tripped, and the gun fell on the floor. He then picked it up and ran out of the house.

Police located a .45 caliber casing in the living room on the love seat and the bullet in the wall of the living room. According to an affidavit the bullet was a full metal jacket and had little to no deformation.

Detectives then contacted Mata and asked to meet to discuss the investigation. Mata refused to cooperate with the investigation.

Mata was indicted on charges of tampering or fabricating physical evidence with the intent to impair an investigation by knowing that an investigation of an injury to a child was pending, intentionally and knowingly concealing a firearm, with intent to impair its availability as evidence in the investigation, and knowingly, recklessly, or with criminal negligence, by act or omission, engaging in conduct that placed child younger than 14 years of age in imminent danger of death, bodily injury, or physical or mental impairment, by making a firearm accessible to a child without any proper safeguards, and the defendant did not voluntarily deliver the child to a designated emergency infant care provider.

Bianca Esquivel, 21, and Mecayla Carla Perez, 19, were indicted for first degree felony injury to a child by intentionally and knowingly cause serious bodily injury to a child 14 years of age or younger by not securing a firearm and the defendant had assumed care, custody, or control of the child. 

These three suspects were the subject of a wanted notice by the SAPD on Tuesday.