Bullet hits ceiling — and couch, tot above

A 3-year-old boy underwent surgery Wednesday after he was accidentally shot by a man living in an apartment below him.

Salt Lake City police detective Dwayne Baird said it's not clear what the man was doing with the rifle but he apparently believed it was unloaded and pulled the trigger at about 10:20 p.m. Tuesday in his second floor apartment at 24 S. 500 East.

The rifle fired a round through the ceiling. A fragment of the bullet struck the boy in the buttocks in the apartment above, Baird said. The boy's father told police he heard a loud noise but was unaware what had happened until he changed the boy's diaper about 15 minutes later and found blood.

"He was just sitting there watching TV," the boy's father told KSL Radio. "And we heard a loud noise. We thought it was a circuit breaker. The next thing he (fell) over and I thought he needed a diaper change. I opened his diaper. I saw blood and realized he was hit with a bullet."

Duane Jaramillo lives in the apartment across the hall from the boy and his father and was watching TV when he heard the shot. He said he knew what it was immediately.

"I was in the Marines. I know what a round sounds like when it goes off," he said.

Jaramillo said he first ran to check his wife, who was in bed, ran downstairs to see what was happening and then ran into his neighbor's apartment across the hall.

The boy was in shock, Jaramillo said, as was his father after he realized what had happened.

"He lifted the couch, and there was a bullet hole in the floor. If the shot had been different just a couple of inches either way . . . " he said, his voice trailing off.

The young boy did not cry, which Jaramillo attributed to shock.

Apartment manager Gail Martinez said she saw the boy's injury and it looked like the bullet had just grazed him.

The boy was transported to Primary Children's Medical Center in fair condition. He was expected to make a full recovery. Police responding to the apartment complex took the shooter's rifle and two other guns that the man voluntarily handed over, Baird said.

No charges had been filed as of Wednesday. But some residents of the apartment complex, including the Jaramillos, were angered over the incident.