3-year-old accidentally shoots his mom to death in family's car in a suburban Chicago supermarket parking lot
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
March 14, 2022 / 1:36 PM / CBS/AP
Parents plead for stronger gun-safety laws Gun safety advocates say firearm risks must be studied and treated like other public health threats09:32
A 3-year-old boy accidentally shot his mother to death as the family was sitting in their car in a suburban Chicago supermarket parking lot, police said. The woman was shot Saturday in Dolton and pronounced dead at a hospital, police said.
The family was sitting in their car outside a Food 4 Less store when the boy somehow found the gun and fired it, striking his mother, police said. Authorities said the boy's father was in custody after indicating that he owned the gun.
The Chicago Sun-Times identified the victim as 22-year-old Dejah Bennet.
No charges have been filed as police continue investigating. The Associated Press left a message Monday seeing updated information from police.
Food 4 Less store in Dolton, Illinois. Google Maps
"This could have been prevented," Dolton trustee Andrew Holmes said Sunday as he visited the supermarket to hand out gun locks and speak to shoppers about the importance of gun safety. "All it takes is a second: unlock it, thread it through the barrel, bring it back around, put it in and lock it back," Holmes told WLS-TV. "If you leave it, secure it."
According to data analyzed by advocacy group Everytown for Gun Safety, so far this year there have been at least 43 unintentional shootings by children in the U.S., resulting in 16 deaths and 29 injuries.
Last year, there were at least 379 unintentional shootings by children nationwide, resulting in 154 deaths and 244 injuries, the group said.
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kids know what they are supposed to do with a gun. pull the trigger. may be primal instinct.
I was told that such stories weren't news stories for our front page.
Now they are?
I said that a long time ago, but I said it about the media bothering to report it. Everyday occurrences in the USA are not news. Does the media report every time a car accident happens - only when it's multiple vehicles and there are deaths, just like mass shootings in schools or places of worship might be news, but what the hell, a person getting shot in the USA? That's news? The media might just as well report every time a leaf falls off a tree. As if this case were the only one where a toddler shoots their parent or sibling. Bah. Humbug.
But let's hear the rah-rah cheer...Guns don't shoot people, people shoot people.
If they fine it they'll play with it.
I feel more sorry for the 3 year old than the parents.
In Chicago, those kids learn to murder at young ages. If the Toddler has no record they will probably be released without bail with an ankle monitor. The trial should be interesting. The gangs recruit them earlier and earlier.
Wow! That is so profound. Glad you wrote it down?
That comment sounds fishy to me.
No new laws are needed, they wouldn't have prevented this tragedy anyway. The Gun was probably illegal to begin with and it certainly isn't legal to transport loaded weapons in a car in Chicago not to mention leaving it where a child could get to it. A lot of laws were broken for this to happen, but anti-gun morons still think more laws are the cure.
That's a mighty big leap based only on the info in the article.
Well, as they say, you can’t fix stupid.
The mom committed negligent manslaughter IMO.
Child abuse, reckless endangerment, unlawful use maybe possession of a firearm. I don't think you can be charged with manslaughter of yourself.
You are right. Usually kids shoot themselves.
The mom? They arrested the dad as he indicated the gun was his. Please explain how the mom was at fault. If you have another information source it's really time to show it as this article has no blame for the mom.
Not surprising it happened in Chicago
Natural selection at work. Nothing more .....
If the Mom had also been armed she'd still be alive.
Right?
So...you're wondering how this might have been different if the mother had retained possession of the weapon and not allowed the child to get it?
Really?
No, I was being sarcastic. The mom having a gun in her purse made it possible. My mom taught second grade for over forty years and swears there was nothing kept some kids from getting in her purse. They managed to get into a locked drawer. Imagine if she carried a gun...
Bringing a gun into a home (in this case a car) exponentially increases the chances someone therein will die of gunshot. Half self inflicted...
I understood you were being sarcastic, but I didn't follow your thinking the rest of the way. Got it now. *thumbsup*
How could she defend herself? Baby had the gun...
Perhaps off topic…so slap me on the wrist and delete as necessary…
A short list of words, acronyms and/or phrases…so easy to cite to fit a narrative, but always invoked in conveniently ignoring the core issues that would require thought and cooperation to address the same.
Chicago
TDS
CRT
build the wall
We have dumbed it down to the point where we have not just lowered the bar…we have razed it.
I agree, although, apparently dad left it, and mom is either watching the toddler play with it, or has no damn idea what the toddler is doing in the car. Sad and avoidable indeed.
The burning question in my mind, however, is why we don't see articles on here, discussing the roughly 39,000 deaths that occur annually from automobile accidents. Apparently, we love to discuss the 39,000 firearm deaths, and the number of guns owned in the US. We don't talk about the fact that there are fewer registered vehicles, but a roughly equivalent amount of deaths with said vehicles involved. The story of the mom that rear ended a semi on the highway, because she was texting, killing herself, her kids, and a couple of their friends, doesn't make national news.
A not so subtle diversion from the topic at hand...
I can't remember the last time I saw, if even I have seen, an article posted here, concerning the statistics on how many kids are mauled to death by dogs annually. Or, the fact that pit bulls account for over 70% of those. The dog lovers would be all over the comments, claiming that it's not the dog's fault, but the owner's. I agree with that.
Same with vehicles. We are up around 38-39,000 deaths on the road annually. The bulk of those are attributable to inattentive (typically phone related) or drunk driving. Nobody would attempt to come on here and blame vehicles...clear user issues.
Falls? over 36,000 people fell to their death in 2017. Are we blaming ladders, or whatever the person was standing on before they fell to their death? No.
Accidental drowning? Triple the number of accidental gunshots, nobody on here blaming water though.
It's not diversion to raise a question. Perrie can jump in and express a different understanding, but I was of the understanding that this was a discussion forum, and not an echo chamber. I am merely pointing out the fact that the article is discussing deaths related to the accidental discharging of firearms, as if that is the most tragic and leading cause of accidental deaths in the US. Not by a long shot. Nor are shooting deaths, either accidental or intentional, the one category where it is the inanimate object's fault.
The burning question in my mind, however, is why we don't see articles on here, discussing the roughly 39,000 deaths that occur annually from automobile accidents. Apparently, we love to discuss the 39,000 firearm deaths, and the number of guns owned in the US. We don't talk about the fact that there are fewer registered vehicles, but a roughly equivalent amount of deaths with said vehicles involved.
Please stop insinuating that guns and cars play equivalent roles in society. Vehicles are a necessary evil, guns are not. Can you drive to work on your gun? Can your crops be hauled to market on your gun? Can you call a gun to pick you up at the airport?
Don't make too much sense, some can't handle it.
That is being too nice. The car vs gun argument is stunningly dumb by any and all standards...
I'd say that all depends on where you live. NYC? I'd go without a car first, and take the train everywhere. You don't believe guns are necessary. I fill my freezer, using the very thing multiple people here are demonizing. And that's my issue with the argument.
Nobody gets on here and demonizes the real problem, which is the person wielding the gun. The folks that post articles like this like to piss and moan about the gun, throw stats out about deaths involving a firearm, then again claim guns are evil...especially the dreaded AR. As soon as you point out that more people are beaten to death annually by a person using only hands and fists than are killed by someone using an AR...? That's when the real ducking and dodging starts, and people start making claims that guns have no real value in our society. That's a huge dodge, because, even if you were successful in eliminating public ownership of guns, the sick bastards doing the killing would employ other tools.
You want to get after something that has no value? Let's see some real effort to eliminate fentanyl. According to the CDC, over 27,000 people died from a fentanyl overdose, 16,000 from heroin, 15,000 from cocaine. That's 58,000 deaths, just from those 3. Apparently, nobody gives a damn about those people though...they must have had it coming.
You want to get after something that has no value? Let's see some real effort to eliminate fentanyl.
Suggestions? Apparently you think that nothing is being done to combat the fentanyl epidemic, and that fentanyl has no value. Neither is true. Fentanyl is so important in the medical field that the surgeon who did my cousin’s hip replacement had no other option than to prescribe it after her surgery, knowing that she was a former addict that was seven years clean. She is now in rehab again after another OD. People make poor choices and that isn’t something that the government can fix. It can only go after the sources when they are exposed, which they do.
Nobody is trying to grab your guns. However, you will get called out when you try to create false equivalencies in the defense of gun carnage.
That is definitely not true. Shiela Jackson spends her days sponsoring bills for just that purpose. And, there is nothing false about pointing to the fact that there are multiple things out there that are used, intentionally or unintentionally, to kill more people annually than guns.
Which is what I have been saying...guns are not evil, its the person in control of the gun.
No, I'm just using the same hypocritical reasoning and logic that I see here on NT, day in and day out. Why isn't NT littered with "fentanyl is evil" articles? Kills as many people annually as firearms, and literally over 100 times more than the evil and sadistic AR...but nope...crickets. Why? When used in a legal manner, it has legitimate and practical beneficial applications? When used illicitly, deadly consequences? That's no different than cars, guns, knives, candlesticks, baseball bats, or any other inanimate object or thing. We are being conditioned to only concern ourselves with fatalities resulting from the use of a firearm though, and especially the AR-15, which, again, is involved in 1/100th of the fatalities that fentanyl is. And, here you are, defending the legal use of fentanyl, but I can't remember a time I've seen you support the legal use or ownership of an AR-15 or similar semi-auto firearm.
So guns should be registered, licensed and insured?
Because dogs, ladders, and high objects are also? Your question, no offense, doesn't follow. Yes, there are mandatory insurance requirements in order to operate your vehicle on the public right of ways. Has zero impact on the plain import of my comment, which is the fact that the gun hating crowd just can't bring themselves to acknowledge that there are other things out there, that are more often used to kill people with, intentionally or unintentionally, than are firearms. Seems a bit disingenuous, to me, to ignore hundreds of thousands of deaths, because a firearm wasn't involved.
The family was sitting in their car outside a Food 4 Less store when the boy somehow found the gun and fired it, striking his mother, police said. Authorities said the boy's father was in custody after indicating that he owned the gun.
A child that age would be in a car seat behind the mother. Dad left gun close enough for the child to reach it. Hmmmmm.
Meh nothing newsworthy here, though hopefully Dad goes to jail for awhile
Meanwhile another state has passed a law allowing people to concealed carry without a permit or training.
Maybe if this father hadn't felt the need to hide the gun while he went into the store the child wouldn't have found it. At least if it's on your person you have control of the gun instead of hiding it under the seat because it's illegal. The Father probably carries it illegally most of the time but didn't want to get caught with an illegal gun while he was shoplifting so he left it in the car.