Man pleads guilty to reckless endangerment after child accidentally shot self at school

The owner of a Glock that a child took to an Anne Arundel County elementary school and accidentally shot himself with will have to forfeit the weapon and undergo six months of unsupervised probation.

Eashan Stefanski, 35, pleaded guilty in court Tuesday to one count of reckless endangerment, months after a 7-year-old boy who lived with him took the gun to Freetown Elementary School to show it off to his friends.

The boy accidentally shot himself in the hand, Assistant State’s Attorney Murphy Hartford said in court, and the ground underneath his desk had a crack or hole in it.

Stefanski was charged the day after the accidental shooting on Feb. 4.

The 7-year-old boy accidentally shot his fingers while nine other students and a teacher were in the classroom, according to police charging documents.

No other injuries were reported, and school officials said the teacher acted quickly to secure the weapon and get the child medical attention.

The shooting happened around 8:30 a.m., just as school was getting started. Police arrived by 8:36 a.m., and all students were dismissed — either picked up by guardians or placed on school buses — around 11 a.m.

Hartford said the teacher heard a “loud pop sound” and saw the 7-year-old bleeding. The school nurse treated the boy, and it was the school nurse who saw the gun in his coat pocket.

“Obviously, this was a tragedy. Something awful could have happened,” he said.

The boy had damage to two fingers on his left hand but was released from the hospital later the same day, Hartford said.

While in the hospital, the boy said he wants to grow up to be in the Army — like Stefanski — and that he wanted to show off the gun to his friends, Hartford said.

Police said the boy lived with two siblings, his mother and her boyfriend, Stefanski. In court, Stefanski’s defense attorney, Michelle LaTorre, said the boy no longer lives in that home, but that he still has a positive relationship with Stefanski.

There was no intent from the child to hurt anyone with the weapon, he said.

Anne Arundel County Public Schools did not respond to a request for comment.

At the time of the shooting, Superintendent Mark Bedell commended schools staff for the work they did in the aftermath and thanked parents for giving them some grace.

Bedell said he’s a parent in the school district, too.

“We want our kids to be able to come to school, and we want them to be able to learn in a safe environment,” he said at the time.

After the shooting, Anne Arundel County Police went to Stefanksi’s home to investigate how he stored his guns.

A detective found an unloaded handgun under a mattress. In the bedroom closet the detective found two unloaded handguns in gun boxes with gun locks on them, along with keys to the gun locks and an unloaded rifle with a gun lock, police said.

The detective also found a gun box missing its firearm but containing the gun lock, the keys to it and a loaded magazine. This was the box that held the Glock .27 semiautomatic pistol that was accidentally fired at Freetown Elementary, police said.

“I determined the firearms were not properly stored to keep them from children and seized them for safekeeping,” Detective T.J. Baldwin wrote in charging documents.

In court, Stefanski’s defense attorney, LaTorre, said that Stefanski kept his guns locked in a safe in a closet, and that they also had locks on them.

She said Stefanski invited police back to his home to see how he secured his weapons. The unloaded handgun that police said in charging documents they found under a mattress was not addressed in court.

Almost immediately after the accidental shooting, LaTorre said, Stefanski upgraded his gun safes to have biometric security features, so that “nothing like this could ever happen again.”

Stefanski spoke briefly in court, apologizing to the school, the community and the boy’s mother.

The 7-year-old wrote a letter to his teacher and principal apologizing for bringing the gun to school, Hartford said.

Anne Arundel County makes gun safety locks available free to all residents. They can be picked up at any library branch. The county also has a Gun Violence Intervention Team as part of its Department of Health.

The Banner’s Alex Mann contributed to this report.