6-year-old girl finds gun in couch cushion, fatally shoots herself

A 6-year-old girl's life was cut short on Saturday after the Atlanta, Ga., child used a gun she found in a couch to shoot herself dead, police and media reports said.

Ja’Mecca Smith, the youngest of seven children, found a loaded gun tucked between the cusions of a sofa and shot herself in the head, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.

Atlanta police responded to the apartment at 1041 Martin St. SE, about a mile southeast of Turner Field, just before 11 a.m. Saturday. Police said Ja'Mecca's father, 25-year-old Demarqo Smith, briefly fled the apartment before returning to speak with detectives.

Ja’Mecca is the third Georgia child killed by shooting themselves in the past month. On Nov. 11, 2-year-old Jayden Jamar Clay accidentally shot and killed himself with a gun that belonged to his mother’s boyfriend.

“The fact that a child got a gun isn’t an accident, that’s negligence,” Viviana Goldenberg, a member of the Georgia chapter of Moms Demand Action, told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution after Clay’s death.

Less than three weeks prior to that, another 2-year-old in Acworth, Ga., died after shooting himself with a semi-automatic handgun that had been left on a bed.

Family members of Ja'Mecca Smith have set up a GoFundMe page to raise money for the 6-year-old’s funeral expenses.