ST. LUCIE COUNTY, FL— A 39-year-old St. Lucie County man is facing child abuse charges after allegedly shooting a boy in the chest with a pellet gun to teach him a lesson, according to St. Lucie County Sheriff’s Office arrest report.
On Christmas Day, deputies charged Christopher Fred Cady, of the 2600 block of North U.S. 1, with felony cruelty toward child without great harm.
The report gives the following account:
The boy received a pellet gun as a Christmas gift and went outside to play with it. Outside, he shot his autistic cousin in the buttocks.
Cady, a registered sex offender, took the gun from the boy and shot the boy in the chest, “to show him what he felt like and that getting shot with a pellet gun hurts.”
A large welt was on the right side of the boy’s chest. The boy spent the night with his grandmother and the incident was reported to the Department of Children and Families.
As of Saturday, Cady was in St. Lucie County Jail in lieu of $500 bail for the child abuse charge and being held without bail for failing to report a change in address or name as a sex offender.
