Grandparents Of 5-Year-Old Girl Who Found Gun, Shot Herself Charged With Manslaughter
DETROIT (WWJ) - The grandparents of a 5-year-old girl who fatally shot herself with a gun she found at their Detroit home have been charged with involuntary manslaughter.
Mariah Davis, 5, died at around midnight on Wednesday, May 11, after police say she discovered a loaded .38 caliber handgun underneath her grandmother's pillow and brought it back into a room she shared with two other small children.
She was the fourth child shot in Detroit's 8th Precinct since Easter; and, in the last 17 months in Wayne County, Prosecutor Kym Worthy says children have either killed or injured themselves or others in eight incidents involving unsecured guns.
"These guns are illegally owned, they're often unsecured and most of the time children know where they are, even if parents think that they don't. And all of this is totally and completely and absolutely preventable," Worthy said, in announcing the charges on Wednesday.
Frederick Davis, 65 and Patricia McNeal, 65, are charged with one count each of involuntary manslaughter, second degree child abuse and felony firearm. Davis has also been charged with felon in possession of a firearm.
Worthy said they're expected to turn themselves in to be processed and arraigned at 10:30 a.m. on Thursday, in 36th District Court.
Also Tuesday, firearms charges were filed against relatives of a 4-year-old Detroit boy who found an unsecured gun and shot himself in the hand last fall.
"Some people will say, maybe even some of you will say: Why are we charging someone who's 80 years old? Why are we chargning grandparents who are 65 years old?" Worth said. "Well, first of all, the victims in these cases — those who did not have the good luck, for lack of a better word to survive — won't reach their fifth birthday, won't reach their tenth birthday, let alone their eightieth birthday."
"We have to be responsible," she said. "When we decide to either have, bear, adopt of look after children, we have to be responsible. We have to know what is in our homes that is inherently dangerous."
Worthy says the issue of kids and guns is "health issue, not crime issue," and that she wants to meet with heads of area hospitals about their role in promoting gun safety.
Worthy is also calling for legislation that would discourage irresponsible gun storage with criminal penalties against gun owners whose unsecured firearms are accessed and used by a child, leading to injury or death.
These charged comes after a string of shootings involving kids in the city. On Easter Sunday, 3-year-old Aniaya Montgomery was shot and killed when gunmen stormed her Detroit home. Miracle Murray, only 6 months old, died on April 17 on Detroit's west side; and a 4-year-old boy was seriously injured six days later, riding a bike with his 24-year-old dad who was killed.