When his gun went off and wounded his nephew last month, James Devon Early was surrounded by family members watching a football game, and some of them told him to run and not look back.

When the 17-year-old pleaded guilty to the crime Monday and was sent to prison, the only people surrounding him were lawyers, a judge, probation officers and a couple of sheriff’s deputies.

Early pleaded guilty to a single count of reckless discharge of a firearm in the Sept. 6 wounding of 2-month-old Isaac Early Jr. The teen had been handling a .38-caliber revolver he had brought to his brother’s home, even though the brother had told him not to have a loaded gun around a baby.

Early’s mishandling of the gun nearly had tragic consequences, Hennepin County District Judge Jay Quam told him Monday.

“Obviously, what you did is irresponsible … and it could’ve been worse,” Quam said.

The case has a twist. Under sentencing guidelines, Early probably would have been placed on three years’ probation, but he asked to be sent to the Minnesota Department of Corrections for the year and a day prosecutors had agreed to.

The reason: He’ll be done sooner. State inmates generally serve two-thirds of their sentence before they’re released to serve the remaining third on probation. In Early’s case, with the 36 days of credit he got for time already spent in jail, he could be out in about eight months and be done with the case by this time next year.

“I don’t get many people who say, ‘Please send me to prison instead of jail,’ ” Quam told the teen.

The bullet struck the infant below the right ear. He was treated at Hennepin County Medical Center and was released, but police said that doctors are unsure what permanent injuries, if any, the child will have.

Moments before the shooting, the baby’s father, Isaac Early Sr., 24, had grabbed the revolver from his younger brother, unloaded it and chastised Early for having a loaded gun around a baby.

James Early put the bullets back in, and as he was handling it, the gun went off.

Witnesses told investigators that Early said he was sorry and, at the urging of some in the house, ran out a back door.

His brother carried the infant outside and waited for police and paramedics to arrive. At first, he told them he had been walking down the sidewalk with the child when he was hit by a stray bullet.

He later told them his younger brother had shot the infant.

The teen took to his Facebook page to write, “I’m sorry all my loved ones but accidents do happen but I’ll be a man about mine.” He later gave himself up and waived his right to be prosecuted as a juvenile.

Quam gave Early a chance to speak before being sentenced, but he had nothing to say.

The judge said Early was doing the proper thing by taking responsibility and doing so quickly. He told the teen to use his time in prison to “figure out how to behave differently … so you don’t put yourself in the same situation.”

“I hope not to see you again,” Quam said as he adjourned the hearing.

With that, Early shook hands and hugged defense attorney Lee Paul Kratch and then turned to Assistant Hennepin County Attorney Elizabeth Beltaos and the others in the courtroom and said, “Thank you, everybody.”

Deputies then led him away.

David Hanners can be reached at 612-338-6516.