A 3-year-old boy died of an accidental self-inflicted gunshot wound at a Tacoma gas station early Wednesday morning, a Tacoma Police Department spokesman said.

The Pierce County Medical Examiner's Office has identified the boy as Julio Segura-McIntosh.

The shooting happened after a man and his girlfriend stopped for gas near South 56^th Street and Tacoma Mall Boulevard around 12:30 a.m., said Officer Naveed Benjamin.

Before he went outside to pump gas into their car, a dark Chrysler Pacifica, the man took off a handgun he was carrying and hid it under the seat.  

 The woman went into the minimart.

While both adults were out of the car, the woman's 3-year-old son, who was in a child safety seat in the back, found the gun under the seat and fired.

“The boy got out of his child seat, which was in the back seat of the minivan, and went forward and found the pistol and discharged it,” said Benjamin.

Medics rushed the boy to Mary Bridge Hospital, where he was pronounced dead from a gunshot wound to the head.

The woman's second child, a 1-year-old girl, was also in the car at the time of the shooting. She was not hurt.

Police interviewed the Tacoma-area couple, and officers said the shooting appears to have been an accident.  Pierce County Prosecutor Mark Lindquist says he doesn't have all the facts in the case yet but said the gun's owner could be charged with manslaughter.

Police told KIRO 7 Eyewitness News reporter Michelle Millman that the handgun was legal and the man has a concealed weapons permit.

The boy's mother, at times sobbing, was among those hanging up the balloons along with other family members not far from the gas station where the 3-year-old was killed.

A former neighbor of the boy’s mother, Jennifer Carrillo, said the boy's mother called early Wednesday morning to say her son was dead.

“(Julio Segura-McIntosh) was my son, Abrezza, his best friend.   And he really doesn’t understand.  He was asking for him,” said Carrillo. “But he doesn’t understand.  We just told him his friend was up in heaven.  That’s what we told him.”

It is the third accidental shooting recently in the Seattle area in which a child was killed or injured.  

On Feb. 22, 8-year-old Amina Kocer-Bowman was shot by a classmate at a Bremerton elementary school when a gun in a classmate's backpack went off.  She was "very close to death," said a surgeon at Harborview Medical Center, where she is recovering.  

On Saturday, a 7-year-old girl was shot when her brother found a gun in the family's van in Stanwood.  She died the next day.