8-year-old fatally shoots younger brother with gun found under box of chips, feds say

One year after an 8-year-old child found a gun under a box of chips and accidentally shot his younger brother in the face, a Minnesota man has been sentenced in connection to the case.

Phillip Neal Jones, Jr., 34, was sentenced to 57 months in federal prison, then three years of supervised release, after illegally possessing the pistol used in the fatal shooting, according to a March 22 news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Minnesota.

In a sentencing memorandum filed in court, Jones admitted to owning the firearm and leaving it in his Moorhead apartment, in eastern Minnesota, when leaving for North Dakota the weekend of March 19, 2021. His defense attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment from McClatchy News.

While he was out of state, a close friend was supposed to watch his 6-year-old daughter in his apartment, and he expected them to “watch movies, order food, and do ‘girl things’ together over the weekend. But that didn’t happen,” records say.

On Sunday, March 21, Jones says his cousin left her three children at his apartment without asking, then later invited his close friend to go shopping while leaving all four young children home alone.

While the children were unattended, officials say, the 8-year-old found the loaded gun under a large box of snack chips in the kitchen.

“The gun went off while he was holding it, hitting his 6-year-old brother in the face, and killing him,” court records say.

Authorities say this was an accidental shooting, and the round had ricocheted off a stove before striking the 6-year-old child.

“Mr. Jones was informed while he was still in North Dakota that (the 6-year-old) died in his apartment,” his sentencing memorandum states. “He is crushed by the thought that his gun possession ultimately led to the tragic accident in this case. Mr. Jones was very close to (the child). Even though they are technically cousins, he looked at (him) like his own son. He misses (the child) every day.”

His defense attorney says he didn’t keep the gun in the kitchen, but rather in his bedroom. “He understands that the gun was later recovered by police in a chip box but that is not where he kept it,” the attorney said in court records. “The spent cartridge was recovered by police from the kitchen trash can making it clear that one of the children placed these items there.”

Jones was not allowed to own a gun after “multiple prior felony convictions,” officials said.

Before this accidental shooting, officials say Jones had been convicted of illegally possessing a firearm on three different occasions between ages 18 and 28. He was most recently released from prison in late 2019.

“The only reason that he possessed the gun was to protect his home, where his children often stay, from the very real dangers that he has experienced over the course of his life,” Jones’ legal team said in court records. “Never did he imagine that a child would use the gun because he never left his children unsupervised in his home.”

Jones’ legal team pushed for a 30-month prison sentence.

Prosecutors said they understood Jones “credibly claims that he is devastated by this incident” and that the victim’s father did not want Jones to serve a long sentence as “Jones has suffered enough because he had a relationship with the victim.”

“Those understandable feelings do not erase the fact that Jones is responsible for the death of a child,” federal officials said. “Jones flouted the law again and again and again. State authorities did everything in their power to protect the public from Jones, and to prevent Jones from possessing guns – they prosecuted him, convicted him, and sentenced him to prison three times for the same crime. Jones was undeterred.”

This story was originally published March 23, 2022 at 10:33 AM with the headline "8-year-old fatally shoots younger brother with gun found under box of chips, feds say."