Man arrested on US TV after toddler filmed waving gun

Source: BBC News — A man has been arrested on live TV in the US state of Indiana after his four-year-old son, appearing to wear a nappy, was seen waving a gun.

Shane Osborne, 45, was charged with neglect after neighbours reported a child in a hallway carrying what they believed to be a handgun, police said.

The arrest was filmed on the TV show On Patrol: Live.

The show aired surveillance video allegedly showing the boy playing with a weapon and even pulling the trigger.

Mr Osborne initially told police there were no weapons in the house, claiming to have been been feeling ill all day and sleeping, Beech Grove Police told the BBC.

“I don’t have a gun,” he tells police on the show, where Beech Grove officers are followed on shift. “I have never brought a gun into this house, if there is, it’s my cousin’s.”

He added that he did not realise that his son had been outside in the hallway of the apartments.

While the officers were still on the scene, a neighbour came forward to the officers with surveillance video. The video showed the young child in the hallway with what appeared to be a real firearm.

Police then found the firearm in Mr Osborne’s apartment and he was arrested.

All of this was aired live on the TV show, which is broadcast on the Reelz channel. Mr Osborne is due to appear in court on Tuesday.

Beech Grove Mayor Dennis Buckley told local station WTHR he was “mortified” about the incident.

“As with all of you, I’m mortified and what took place and I’m so thankful that no one was hurt, especially the young child.

“I appreciate the quick action taken by the Beech Grove Police Department to secure the small child and the gun in question,” he said.

It comes in the same month that a six-year-old student allegedly shot his teacher with a handgun at a Virginia elementary school, in what police described as an “intentional” shooting.