The man, identified by Pulaski County Sheriff’s Office as Travis Popplewell, of Stanford, was assaulting his girlfriend and a child in the house on Poplar Estates Road in Somerset when another child, identified as the woman’s son, shot him with a handgun, police said according to NBC12.

The shooting took place at around 8 p.m. in what police revealed is the woman’s home.

According to deputies, Popplewell was pronounced dead at the scene by the coroner. Officers did not disclose the name of the woman, nor of the two minors involved in the incident. It’s not known to whom the gun belonged.

A death investigation is currently underway and no arrests have been made so far, according to the Sheriff’s Office. Once the investigation is complete, its findings will be presented to the Pulaski County Attorney’s Office, said the Sheriff’s Office.

Domestic violence is a widespread and growing issue in the U.S., where some 10 million people are estimated to have experienced some form of domestic abuse every year, according to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence (NACDV).

An average of about 20 people per minute in the U.S. are physically abused by their intimate partner, the nonprofit organization has reported.

Domestic violence rates are particularly high in Kentucky.

According to the NCADV, citing a 2019 report, 45.3 percent of Kentucky women and 35.5 percent of Kentucky men have experienced physical violence and/or rape by their partner in their lifetimes.

The state also has the 11th highest femicide rate in the entire country, based on data from 2017.

Children are exposed to domestic violence as both victims and witnesses. One in 15 children are exposed to intimate partner violence each year in the U.S., and 90 percent of these children are eyewitnesses to this violence, according to data shared by NCADV.

The latest report by the National Network to End Domestic Violence (NNEDV), showing the result of a survey conducted over a 24-hour period, found that in one day in September 2021, Kentucky’s emergency shelters and other service providers for victims of domestic abuse served 985 people.

Some 73 requests for emergency housing, transportation, childcare and legal representation could not be met.

Domestic violence hotlines in the state got about five calls per hour denouncing cases of domestic abuse.

The NCADV had found that the presence of a gun in a house where domestic violence is committed increases the chances of homicides by 500 percent.