Dad charged after kids find loaded gun

BRIDGEPORT - A local man was arrested after police said his two young sons got hold of his loaded gun.

Fabian Vega, 29, of Hallett Street, was charged Tuesday with risk of injury to children, failure to store a loaded firearm and first-degree reckless endangerment.

He was released after posting $75,000 bond.

Police said Vega’s girlfriend had come to the front desk of the Police Department and turned over a loaded .40-caliber handgun she said she had taken from her sons, aged 6 and 11.

The children had been rummaging through the kitchen cabinets looking for snacks when they found the handgun in a drawer, police said.

They said the two boys alerted their mother, “We found poppy’s gun,” and the woman immediately took it from them and put the gun in a gym bag and brought it to the Police Department.

Vega had not been in the apartment when the gun was found. When officers later confronted him, they said he told them he and a neighbor had been drinking heavily and he may have put the gun in the drawer for safe keeping.

Police said Vega had a permit for the gun.