Man sentenced after toddler used his gun to fatally shoot 7-year-old

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (CLARKSVILLENOW) – Anthony Patrick Sanders, aka “Ant,” aka Lil A,” 28, of Nashville, Tennessee, was sentenced Wednesday in U.S. District Court to 10 years in prison for being a felon in possession of two firearms. One of those firearms was used by a toddler who fatally shot 7-year-old Harmony Warfield on June 6, 2017.

Sanders was charged on June 14, 2017, after the accidental shooting death of 7-year-old Harmony Warfield on June 6, 2017 in the Napier Homes public housing development in Nashville. He was indicted by a federal grand jury on July 12, 2017, and pleaded guilty on November 7, 2017.

According to court documents, in June 2016 Sanders was released from prison after being convicted of kidnapping in 2008. In or around February 2017, Sanders began frequenting the J.C. Napier Housing Development in Nashville and regularly began selling heroin in the area. Sanders was known to regularly carry a firearm when he was selling heroin in the area and he frequently stayed at an apartment on Lewis St.

Sanders stayed at the Lewis St. apartment on the night of June 5, 2017. He awoke the following morning and went outside, leaving a loaded pistol within easy access of anyone inside the apartment. Shortly thereafter, a juvenile in the apartment picked up the firearm and discharged the weapon, striking Harmony Warfield in the head and killing her. Sanders then re-entered the apartment and found Harmony laying on the kitchen floor with a gunshot wound to the head. He then retrieved the firearm and fled the area.

Court records indicate that three other children, ages 2, 11 and 14, were in the apartment when the incident occurred.

Sanders eventually fled to a community near Columbus, Ohio where he hid the firearm, which was later recovered by ATF agents. Sanders later made threatening statements directed at the person he believed helped recover the firearm. It was also determined that Sanders had taken this firearm from an individual in May 2017, after a fight in the Cayce Homes public housing development in Nashville.

In sentencing Sanders, U.S. District Judge Aleta Trauger described this as “a very serious case of a felon possessing a firearm” because of the resulting tragedy and the defendant’s actions that followed.