Children were playing with guns at a St. Paul apartment when one went off and an 11-year-old was shot in the face, according to charges filed Monday.

Paramedics took the boy to the hospital with a life-threatening injury and he underwent surgery.

The Ramsey County attorney’s office charged Martinez Castillo Lloyd, 34, with negligent storage of firearms and possession of a firearm by a person convicted of a crime of violence.

The criminal complaint gave the following information from police and prosecutors:

Two of Lloyd’s children were among a group of young people who are all friends, and some who are relatives, who were hanging out Friday night.

Officers responded to the Frogtown apartment building where Lloyd lives on Friday on a report of a shooting. They arrived about 8:55 p.m. to apartments on Pierce Butler Route and Victoria Street and “a chaotic scene” with numerous juveniles, where they found the 11-year-old lying at the top of the stairs inside the building.

Several juveniles said a girl picked up a firearm and said, “I won’t shoot him” before shooting the boy in the head and running away.

Police determined the 13-year-old girl lives on Charles Avenue and arrested her in the 100 block of Charles Avenue. As police were taking her into custody, she said, “I accidently shot somebody” and “I didn’t know the gun was loaded.” Police arrested her on suspicion of assault.

St. Paul police presented an investigation involving the teen to the county attorney’s office for review. Because of her age, the county attorney’s office said they couldn’t release information about whether she is charged.

Generally, information about juveniles is public if they are 16 and older and charged with a felony, or if they are younger and certified to stand trial as an adult.

Kids played with same guns previously

Lloyd said he lives at the apartment alone. Two of his children, who don’t reside with him but visit frequently, and a group of five other children ranging from 10 to 13 years old arrived about 8:20 p.m. Friday to the apartment.

Lloyd left about 8:50 p.m. to go to a store. His son and niece went into Lloyd’s bedroom and retrieved firearms, with his son grabbing a 9mm handgun and his niece a .357 revolver. They started waving the guns around.

The 13-year-old told police she last played with the firearms the previous weekend and she assumed they were unloaded as they usually were. She said she didn’t know how to open the revolver to check if it was loaded.

The gun went off and the 11-year-old was shot. He fell down in the bedroom, and the other children carried him to the kitchen to give him some water and then tried walking him outside the apartment, which is where he collapsed and police arrived.

“The firearms are kept in a higher up unlocked drawer in a closet that the juveniles can easily reach,” the complaint said.

Two children said they’d played with them a dozen times the last year, generally when Lloyd wasn’t around, and the guns were usually unloaded.

Lloyd told police he previously saw the children playing with the firearms and told them to put them back.

He said he has two firearms, which he kept “in a cabinet high up.” He said he usually took the bullets out of them. He also said his children and the 13-year-old had probably seen him handling the firearms. He said he didn’t use the guns and only kept them for protection.

Police found the revolver under the cushions of a couch in the living room. The 9mm was loaded and the safety was on.

Lloyd is not eligible to possess firearms because he has a prior conviction for third-degree sale of a controlled substance, stemming from a 2010 case, which state law defines as a crime of violence.

Ramsey County Attorney John Choi said Friday’s “tragedy is a painful reminder of the need to safely and securely store guns out of the reach of children.” His office has been funding gun locks since 2016 that are available for free to the community.

The program’s goal is “to expand awareness of the critical need to lock and secure firearms and provide free gun locks to Ramsey County residents through libraries and community centers,” Choi said in a Monday statement, urging gun owners to go to the Ramsey County Gun Safety Initiative website “and take steps to ensure responsible gun ownership so we can prevent future tragedies in our community.”

Lloyd is jailed and is due to make his first court appearance in the case Tuesday. An attorney wasn’t listed for him in the court file as of Monday afternoon.

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