YOUNGSTOWN — The Mahoning County Coroner’s Office has ruled the death of a 3-year-old Struthers boy from a gunshot wound at his Spring Street home on Aug. 15 an accident.

The boy, Gionni A. Jackson, had just turned 3 years old five days earlier, according to the death certificate and narrative from the Mahoning County Coroner’s Office.

The autopsy report states that the boy suffered a gunshot entrance wound to the right side of his forehead with evidence of a “close-range discharge.” The angle of the bullet was from front to back and upward.

The Mahoning County Sheriff’s Office carried out the investigation of the boy’s death at the request of the Struthers Police Department because of a conflict of interest between police Chief Tim Roddy and the boy’s family, said Maj. Jeff Allen of the sheriff’s office.

Allen said once the investigation is complete, he will submit a report to the Mahoning County Prosecutor’s Office, and they will determine if any charges are warranted.

Struthers police Capt. D.J. Aldish said shortly after the shooting that the incident involved an “unsecured firearm in a home. And the worst possible thing happened, and a child got ahold of it.”

The narrative part of the coroner’s report states that officers were called to St. Elizabeth Youngstown Hospital for a boy with a gunshot wound.

Aldish advised that the boy was at his home on Spring Street when he shot himself using an unsecured firearm. His father drove him to the hospital, and the boy died a short time later, the report states.

Both of the boy’s parents were home at the time the boy was shot, but did not witness it, the report states.

Aldish reported that a loaded handgun was found near blood in a rear bedroom of the home. A bullet hole was in the ceiling above the blood. An autopsy was performed by the Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner’s Office.

A coroner’s office investigator spoke with Jacob Jackson, the boy’s father, who said he was getting ready to go to his mother’s house to retrieve his gun holster. At about noon, he set his handgun on the dresser so he could use the bathroom. The dresser was about waist-high. Jackson reported that Gionni’s mother was doing her hair in the bedroom, and Gionni was behind her.

Jackson said he was using the bathroom with the door open when he heard a pop and saw Gionni fall to the floor.

Jackson picked Gionni up and ran outside to get help. He flagged down a car to take them to the hospital, the report states.

A LifeTRANS ambulance report noted that on that afternoon, paramedics were called to a parking lot at Mathews Road and South Avenue in Boardman at 12:15 p.m. When they arrived, they found the boy without a pulse with a bystander’s shirt wrapped around his head.

Jackson reported that he was driving his son to the hospital but pulled into a parking lot because the boy “went unconscious and stopped breathing,” the report states.

The boy remained unresponsive at the hospital, arriving at 12:38 p.m. Resuscitative efforts were not successful, the report states, and he was pronounced dead at 12:39 p.m.