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Emotional Father Pleads Not Guilty To Fatally Shooting His Toddler

POSTED: 1:06 pm EDT May 9, 2008
UPDATED: 5:35 pm EDT May 9, 2008

An Ocoee father cried in front of Channel 9's camera after he was asked how he was involved in the shooting death of his 22-month-old son. Dontavious Rodgers pled not guilty in court Friday.


RAW VIDEO: Suspect In Toddler's Death Cries After Hearing

At one point, the father claimed the little boy shot himself. According to the police report, Rodgers changed his story a few times. The family waited ten minutes to call 911 and somehow during those ten minutes all the fingerprints disappeared from the gun that killed 22-month-old Tyler Rodgers.

Rodgers, 24, came to court with his family Friday and pled not guilty. He told more than one story about what happened.

The day after Rodgers' 22-month-old son was shot and killed, the young father told police he awakened in his room to see the toddler holding his gun and, when he went to grab it, it fired. He said wasn't sure whether the toddler had fired the gun or if it fired when he grabbed it. Rodgers told police he believed the boy was holding the barrel, not the trigger, but investigators say the gun barrel was up against the little boy's cheek when he was shot.

Rodgers, who is a convicted felon and not supposed to have a gun, said he had hidden the loaded gun between the mattress and the box spring and never explained how his son got it out of there.

"Yes, very tough [on the family] and on him too because it was an accident," Rodger's mother said Friday after the hearing.

But Ocoee's fire chaplain told police he heard Rodger's mother ask: "What happened? Did they run through the house or drive by or what?" He also heard Rodgers answer: "I don't know, man. I mean, why would they do this to my baby?"

Little Tyler died 11 minutes after paramedics arrived.

The father's first story to police was that the little boy had shot himself with the gun he found, but the gun was a .38-caliber pistol and gun experts say its trigger is so stiff no small child could pull it.



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