Girl, 5, told to ‘shoot bad guys’

An Arizona grandfather has been arrested and accused of leaving his five-year-old granddaughter alone in the desert with a loaded and cocked .45-calibre handgun and the instruction to “shoot any bad guys”.

Paul Armand Rater, 53, was booked into the Fourth Avenue Jail in downtown Phoenix on suspicion of two counts of felony child abuse and one count of felony child endangerment stemming from the incident on Sunday.

Rater and the child left their home in Buckeye, about 48km ) west of Phoenix, in a pickup truck early on Sunday afternoon and the girl was reported missing four hours later.

She was eventually located in the desert by her mother and an off-duty firefighter. She was holding the pistol.

“She was given the gun and told to shoot any bad guys,” said Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio. “I don’t know how a five-year-old can tell a good guy from a bad guy.”

Rater was later located at a store where he told deputies the vehicle had broken down and that he had left the girl under a tree in the desert because she was complaining she could not walk any more.

He admitted leaving the girl with his gun “while he went for a few drinks and a cheeseburger”, the sheriff’s office said.