Texas boy was making AK-47 'safe' when he killed stepsister on her 13th birthday

A Texas girl died on Tuesday night after being accidentally shot with an AK-47 assault-style rifle while her stepbrother was "making the weapon safe by pulling the trigger," authorities said.

In a press release on Wednesday, Johnson County Sheriff Bob Alford explained that deputies responded to a call Tuesday night about 8 p.m to find 13-year-old Emilee Bates shot in the stomach.

According to KXAS, Lt. Tim Jones told how the girl's 19-year-old step-brother, Austin McCord, accidentally fired the weapon while cleaning it.

The sheriff's office said that McCord had ejected two "dummy" rounds from the AK-47, but he had forgotten about other live rounds in the magazine.

"He believed he was making the weapon safe by pulling the trigger to drop the bolt on an empty chamber," Jones noted in the news release. "However, the chamber wasn’t empty and discharged."

Bates was taken to a Fort Worth hospital, where she died at around 10 p.m. Tuesday night. Officials said that the incident was considered an accident and no charges would be filed.

According to KXAS, this was the fourth fatal accidental shooting of a child in North Texas in less than one month.

Watch this video from KXAS, broadcast June 5, 2013.

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