CLEVELAND, Ohio -- A cultural obsession with guns may have contributed to the death of a one-year-old boy shot in the head by another child Sunday afternoon, Cleveland Police Chief Calvin Williams said Sunday.

The person responsible for bringing the gun into a house with young children and leaving it within reach of a small boy may face charges, he told a group of reporters gathered in front of the East 63rd Street house where the boy was shot Sunday afternoon.

Police are unsure who brought the gun into the house and why it was left within reach of a small boy, but Williams said an American preoccupation with guns is the underlying problem

"The fascination with handguns, not just in the city, but in the country, has to stop," he said. "We need to take a long look at what we're doing on the state, local and national level to keep these guns out of our communities."

Williams spoke briefly about the incident after a crime scene investigation team swept the scene and interviewed witnesses. He answered only a handful of questions before he left.

A preliminary investigation shows that a 3-year-old boy picked up an unattended firearm and it went off, hitting a 1-year-old boy in the head, he said.

The boy was taken to a nearby hospital and later pronounced dead.

Police are still trying to piece together the events leading up to the shooting, Williams said, but he told reporters at least one adult was home when it happened.

"There had to have been adults that either supplied the weapon, (loaded) the weapon, or that knew the weapon was there and didn't do anything to safeguard it," he said.

Neighbors said a mother lives in the house with three small boys, but it is unclear if the shooter is related to the victim.

The victim's mother could be heard screaming from the back porch after officers told her that her son was dead.

Several other children were inside the house when the shooting took place, Williams said.

People who live in the East Side neighborhood said the families there mostly keep to themselves.

Next-door neighbor Larry Simpson said he hung a TV in the living room of the victim's mother.

"They were friendly with us," he said, saying he spoke with them occasionally when they were sitting on their front porch.

He called the shooting a senseless tragedy.