14 DAY TRIAL // Officials have identified the young victim of a fatal shooting at Yellowstone National Park. The girl may have shot herself with her dad's gun, but an investigation will confirm the findings.
3-year-old Ella Marie Tucker of Pocatello, Idaho, died as a result of a shooting after visiting the park with her parents on Saturday.
A woman, believed to be the girl's mother, called 911 and told the operator that the girl had inflicted the wounds on herself with a handgun.
Police and EMTs were dispatched to the Grant Village Campground, Bozeman Daily Chronicle writes. They tried to resuscitate the girl, but she was pronounced dead on site.
Yellowstone officials do not permit hunting or firing a weapon in the park. Anyone carrying a weapon in a federal wildlife area on national park must hold a valid concealed weapon permit.
Until now, that seemed to be working. The ban has ensured a low number of shooting deaths in the area.
The last time someone was shot at Yellowstone was in 1978. The latest incident involving the fatal shooting of a child was reported decades ago, in 1938.
An investigation by police and National Park Service rangers is ongoing, with officials looking into the circumstances of accidental death.
Yellowstone park spokesman Al Nash describes the tragedy as “the kind of thing that isn't supposed to happen here.”
The dad, who remains unnamed, has the legal right to bring a firearm on the campground, according to a law passed in 2010. Regulations permit him to carry the weapon in the park if he has a valid permit.
Daily Mail notes that, before 2010, visitors were banned from bringing firearms on national park premises. The regulation was submitted on a credit card bill which was passed by Congress in 2009 and approved by president Obama.