OCALA, Fla. (WCJB) - Ocala police are still searching for answers after they were called to a mobile home park Monday for a shooting involving a teen boy.

Detectives said it was 1 p.m. when a 14-year-old boy accidentally shot himself in the neck while playing at a friend’s house. They said the boys went through the parent’s dresser and found the firearm while they were home alone.

The mother of the boy who was not shot was away at work. Officers said they found the child laying on the living room floor. He was trauma alerted to the hospital in critical condition.

Police have not yet released the name or a description of the boy.

We met Jean Miller who agreed to give us some insight into what it’s like living at the Shadow Oaks mobile home park. She’s lived at the property since 2016 she told us.


She said this isn’t the first time a shooting has happened at the shadow oaks mobile home park.



“There was one a couple of months ago where they must have had some kind of big kind of rifle,” Miller said. “They must have had some big rifle because you heard a bunch of bullets going off at one time. And I was sitting on my couch and I immediately hit the floor.”


Ocala police are strongly encouraging gun owners to store their firearms properly. They say a properly stored gun can prevent everything from suicides to accidental shootings and even murders.

It is a second-degree misdemeanor, according to state statute, if a person fails to “store or leave a firearm in the required manner and as a result, thereof a minor gains access to the firearm.”

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