Family and friends have gathered at a tearful memorial for a US woman tragically shot and killed by her own toddler earlier this week.
Milwuakee mother Patrice Price was driving two of her three children and her mother in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, when the two-year-old picked up a 40-calibre gun and fired a single shot through the driver’s seat and into her back.
As her daughter slumped over the wheel, May Watson managed to put her foot on the brake and steer the car to the side of the road, reported The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
Paramedics arrived to find the 26-year-old with no pulse and, despite desperate attempts to revive her, she was pronounced dead at the scene.
The tragic incident bares a striking resemblance to a case last month in which a Florida pro-gun activist was shot by her four-year-old while driving. Jamie Gilt was injured but survived.
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Police believe the gun, which belonged to Price’s security-guard boyfriend, had slid from beneath the front seat, as police also found the man’s gun belt during their search of the vehicle.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel newspaper has reported that the car also, in fact, belonged to the boyfriend and that Price was borrowing it because her own vehicle had recently been stolen.
Neither the toddler nor her one-year-old were properly restrained at the time of the shooting, as their child seats were reportedly stolen along with their mother’s car.
A friend of the victim’s told the Sentinal that Price was usually gun-safe.
“She would have never had a gun in the vehicle,” said Michelle Kane. Her child “never would have found it and she would have been alive if those punks wouldn’t have stolen her car.”
A memorial fund has been established to assist with funeral costs and to donate to her three children.
“The baby’s going to need some therapy,” Kane said of the boy who fired the shot. “Kids are going to be cruel and he’s going to find out in the wrong way, and I don’t want it to affect him in the long term.”
Top Comments
I though this would be another incident like the other woman who was shot by her kid (but survived), and before I read this whole story I thought another gun nut mother and felt little sympathy, however to everyone saying the same as what I originally thought - i.e. no sympathy, please have another read. Because I don't think this was the mother's fault, she needed a car to use as her's was stolen. Probably the last thing on her mind was whether her boyfriend kept a gun unsecured in the car. I realise some people said she didn't have the kids secured but if the car had only just been stolen and she didn't have a chance to get new car seats for the kids this leaves her in a tricky situation, particularly as looking at the photos it appears she is African American, and some of those people are living in dire poverty so it may have been something that she had to save up for again.
Also even with her boyfriend, he was a security guard, so he would have been required to have a gun. He should have had it better secured, but it may have been some last minute thing where she needed his car and he just forgot that his gun wasn't well secured. You've got to remember that someone like that probably has more than one gun due to his job.
So I don't necessarily think that this is your typical, "gun nut" story. However it does indicate that there should be gun control, because one of the reasons this guy probably had a gun is because in his job he would need it because so many others have guns there so he would need to protect himself from the average customer who gets difficult and ends up having a gun.
If guns are removed then no one needs them (other than police) but at the moment there country is so swamped with guns that people like this security guard would probably be in danger if he didn't have one.
you'd think gun nuts would have better safety practices - any gun should be in a 'safe' condition unless you are planning to use it to shoot someone.