A cop who fired a shot during an argument with his policewoman wife to intimidate her has accidentally killed his beloved six-year-old daughter after the bullet ricocheted off the floor and hit her in the abdomen.

Juan Ramon Herrera, aged 34, was arrested following the incident that took place at his home in the town of Virrey del Pino in Argentina’s Buenos Aires Province on 30th May.

According to the police, Herrera had been consuming alcoholic beverages inside the property, where he lived with his daughter, Victoria, and his wife, Natalia Analia Bergamaschi, aged 29.

Bergamaschi is also a cop and worked in the same force as her husband, albeit at a different police station.

A furious row is then believed to have broken out between the couple, and Herrera is believed to have drawn his work gun and fired a shot at the ground to intimidate his wife.

However, according to reports, the bullet ricocheted off the floor and hit Victoria in the abdomen.

The youngster was taken to the local Domingo Roca Health Centre. However, by the time she arrived, she had succumbed to her injuries, and staff were only able to pronounce her dead.

Her father, meanwhile, was arrested for homicide. He is believed to have been drunk at the time of the incident and he has since said that he never intended to harm his daughter.

He has since been suspended from work. There had been no previous complaints of violence against him.

Herrera originally hails from the city of Salta in the north-western Argentine province of the same name.

He married Bergamaschi in 2016 and he was known to regularly post photos of his daughter to social media.

A 2015 post to Facebook showed a tattoo on his back of his daughter’s footprints with her name written above them.

It is not clear if Bergamaschi was Victoria’s biological mother. According to reports, she has two other daughters from a previous relationship.

The case is being investigated.