HAGERSTOWN, Md. (WJZ)— Gun play turns tragic in Hagerstown. A three-year-old boy is injured after he and his sister find a gun in a parking lot.

Monique Griego has the latest.

Police say the little boy was playing in this back parking lot when he found that loaded gun in a bush. They say he probably thought it was a toy, started playing with it and shot himself in the chest.

The incident happened just after 11 a.m. Friday in the 2400-block of West Franklin Street in downtown Hagerstown. Police say at the time of the shooting, the little boy was playing in the parking lot of his apartment complex with his seven-year-old sister. She ran to get help and the boy was taken to the hospital in stable condition.

Officers tell WJZ the gun was a .22 caliber Beretta which typically can fit in the palm of a hand.

“It’s highly unusual to find something like that laying out in the parking lot where they were playing at,” Sgt. Jim Hurd of the Hagerstown Police Department. “And that’s something that we’re going to have to investigate to figure out why that gun was there and who it belongs to.”

“Maybe somebody just threw it away, but it was loaded, which makes you think maybe it was hidden temporarily,” Smina Frush, a neighbor, said.

The three-year-old’s identity has not been released. His sister was not injured.

Police say the gun was not stolen. They are still trying to track down the owner.