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A TODDLER RIDING in the back of a car accidentally shot dead his mother with a gun that slid out from under the driver’s seat, according to US police.
The 26-year-old victim, Patrice Price, was pronounced dead at the scene following the incident in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
The child, aged two-and-a-half and identified by local media as a boy, fired the 40-calibre gun through the driver’s seat where his mother was at the wheel.
Local broadcaster WISN quoted the victim’s father as saying that she was a mother-of-three.
“This little girl right here meant everything in the world to me,” Andre Price told the station. “And I lost the other half of my heart.”
The weapon apparently belonged to the victim’s security guard boyfriend, with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel newspaper reporting that she was driving his car because hers had been stolen days earlier.
Gun belt
The sheriff’s office said that deputies found a security officer’s gun belt belonging to the boyfriend on the floor of the front passenger seat.
The firearm was recovered on the floor behind the driver’s seat. An investigation is under way.
Also in the vehicle were another of Price’s children, aged one, and the woman’s mother. Neither of the children was in a car seat.
Price’s mother told relatives that her daughter turned to her after a loud pop rang out and said: “Momma, don’t let me die,” WISN reported.
Following the shooting, fellow motorists stopped and pushed the car out of traffic before police arrived and performed CPR on Price while awaiting the arrival of emergency services.
The shooting comes on the heels of a similar, though non-fatal, accident in Florida last month.
In that instance, a four-year-old boy accidentally shot his mother in the back while she was at the wheel, leaving the passionately pro-gun woman badly wounded.
Jamie Gilt, who had boasted online about her toddler’s shooting prowess, was cruising down a major thoroughfare with her son in the back when he shot her on 8 March. The bullet went through the seat cushion.
The mother and boy were on their way to pick up a horse, said police, who rushed to Gilt’s aid after an officer checked to see why the vehicle had stopped.
The weapon was a .45-calibre handgun the boy found on the floor of the pickup truck Gilt was driving. Police said she legally owned the weapon.
According to Everytown for Gun Safety, a group aimed at reducing US gun violence, there have been at least 77 shootings this year during which a child or adolescent aged 17 or under unintentionally fired a gun and killed or injured someone.
Firearms claim the lives of some 30,000 people in the United States each year.
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77th incident this year involving a child shooting someone, no America doesn’t have a gun problem at all.
‘MERIKA!
Guns are about 1/10 of the problem , the main problem is stupidity and the first move is to ban certain people from have kids. Sadly there is no cure for stupid but that child might have stumbled onto one though.
@Dave
What is this nonsense about sensible gun regulation? Damn fascists trying to tell people what they can or can’t do! Instead we should regulate the reproductive rights of people, and force sterilise them.
I can’t believe somebody wrote that. A fully-grown adult typed out those words and pressed “submit” and thought to themselves, ‘Ha…take that liberals!’ and at no point questioned it.
I’lol agree with you to a certain extent though. You probably shouldn’t have children.
@David Meagher you give out about stupidity yet you seem incapable of putting together a correct sentence with proper English and spelling. Says it all about your low intelligence.
How on earth can you drive around without a 1 and 2.5 year old in a car seat?? It’s a miracle they’re not all dead
So in America kids with guns are more likely to shoot you than ISIS or other terrorists. Forget the war on terror we need billions for the war on toddlers
Hit it right on the nail!
In the past decade 24 Americans have died as a result of terrorism vs 280,024 deaths from gun related violence. Not only would your child be more likely to kill you than ISIS, you’d want to keep an eye on your toaster plotting your downfall much as a terrorist. (Figures released in October 2015).
Should be able to deal with the threat with air strikes.
I’m gone beyond saying “ah that’s very sad ” to .. ” what a F.cuking moron”…
The NRA are probably saying that if the mother had her gun on her she’d be able to protect herself….
The mother should have had a gun to protect herself from her 2 year old.
Zing!!!!
This is unfortunately what happens when there’s more guns than sense floating around the US.
This wouldn’t have happened if there was more guns.
If the woman had had her children in car seats there is no way the toddler would have been able to even reach the gun in the foot well! Idiots.
Surely the problem here is not the gun but the fact that a 2 year old was not strapped into a car seat. Tied into a seat means mammy is still alive.
No gun also means mammy is still alive. It’s a combination of events
I suspect the car seats were in the car that was stolen a few days previously and she either hadn’t gotten around to replacing them or couldn’t afford to?
It’s one of the problems… The main one is a loaded gun with the afety off casually left on the floor of a car
Oh yeah. Better replace the car seats, never mind the loaded gun lying around.
RIP. Very sad to see a such a young family without their mother. How are there so many people still resisting gun control efforts in the states? How many grieving families are needed?
Why was there a gun under the seat & not hidden away in the front pocket of the car. Why was the child not in a car seat strapped in. Just curious.
I’m amazed how the U.S. See fit to be appalled and spend billions defending U.S. citizens abroad and their so called Isis threat that cost the lives of 14 Americans so far.
They’re shooting each other to the tune of 30,000 dead a year.
Well any mother that leaves a gun within the reach of a child………
Welcome to the United States… Where brains are optional….!
Read the article, it was her boyfriend that left the gun in an unsafe place.
Jerome , maybe you should read the article. ..
Jerome read the article ya lazy ….
We had 600 people take their own lives last year alone. I don’t care about this it’s up to Americans to look after their own as it is up to us to look after ours. We need to start now.
No Jerome was right in the first instance. A properly restrained two year old wouldn’t reach anything on the floor.
@Kevin, red the story, the mother’s car was stolen a few days earlier, and the child seats were most likely in her car, the only person to blame here is the boyfriend who left the gun unsecured in the car
Larissa – the mother was to blame too for taking a one year old and a two and a half year old out in a car without car seats – her car was stolen, okay, so take the bus!! at least your kids would be safe in a buggy and not unrestrained in a car!!
Nope. No car seats? Don’t travel with a child in the back. Ever.
She didn’t? Her own car got stolen a few days previous she was driving her boyfriends car? Maybe she didn’t know it was there. Like did you read the article?
I read the article but I agree with Jerome
She should have had the kids in a child seat and be sure there’s nothing in the car that can harm them
The boyfriend isn’t to blame here. The mother was driving the car with two unrestrained kids in it. She’s at fault and while the whole thing is tragic it could have been avoided so very easily.
The boyfriend who is a security guard in the first place, should be fired for gross negligence, at least what kind of motion would leave a gun in the seat of a car in the first place.
An american moron would .
In the words of Jim Jeffires, pro gun Americans only have one argument for having firearms.
” I like guns, f**k off “
Guns in any kind of domestic environment, home, car, social etc, are inherently and innately dangerous. It is not possible to ensure that adequate controls are observed in all cases at all times. Accidents will happen. Remove the gun from the environment and the risk is avoided.
Having guns in the presence of or near chikdren is just insanely reckless.
The unbiquity of guns means that these accidental deaths and serious injuries are inevitable. It is a price that many Americans are not just willing to pay but actually enthusiastic about paying. The love of guns exceeds the love of life. That is their value system.
I was in Austin Texas last year and you could walk up to a car boot at a show and buy a gun without a license or background check. The place is nuts when it comes to guns.
If her partner was more careful about where he left his gun then the woman would still be alive and the child’s life wouldn’t have been destroyed either ..
The woman wasn’t too concerned about her kids safety, not strapping them in to car seats.
Firing, jailing or other such measures against the partner are all well and good but it will not bring the mother back to life and it will not prevent the next gun related death. The gun is the problem but it is easier and neater to pretend otherwise. Guns and people make a bad mix.
Shouldn’t really be news anymore if they refuse to change the gun laws. Just another average day in America…
Was the child a cop?
It’s just such a stupid nation as a whole. The father should be jailed for leaving the gun out of his possession.
I get all the anti gun statements but this is a case of negligence on behave of the security guard nothing to do with the mother. I am pretty sure you can’t keep your gun under the seat and not secure.
It’s ALWAYS a case of negligence. That’s the point. Any idiot on that country can own a lethal weapon, they are always responsible owners until the inevitable accident or incident
Unless you ban all weapons in all countries your a hypocrite. If we had Americas population we would see these kinds of incidences. Its nearly impossibly to legally hold a hand gun here but thousands of people hold licences for shotguns and rifles.
Vincent, “If we had Americas population we would see these kinds of incidences”. No we wouldn’t. There are many countries with more liberal gun policies than Ireland where the incident of gun related deaths per capita is a fraction of that of the US. The problem with the US is that there are too many guns, too many of the wrong type of guns permitted, very poor regulation and a unique “gun culture” which values the right to own a gun above the right to life. No other country in the developed world has this problem. Only America. There is no need to ban all weapons as you suggest people are proposing. Just better regulation and controls (e.g. on semi-automatic weapons). Easy gun availability makes a country and a society less safe and America proves this to be the case. Many years ago a great many countries looked to the US for best policy in a whole range of areas. Now nobody looks to the US.
Actually thinking about it this story shows just how careless some American families are. 1. Gun left loaded under a seat. 2. Safety catch left off on the gun. 3. Two kids not strapped in while adults where driving. They really don’t value life or each other
The ‘black lives matter’ march for this is happening when? ….
@Charles
I’m going to take this article that has absolutely nothing to do with BLM and use it to have a go at them anyway because the woman concerned happens to be black.
Why don’t you comment on articles about cops killing other cops (you’d be amazed how often it happens in the good old US) asking when the #BlueLivesMatter folks are going to have a rally?
Why don’t you comment on articles about white people getting killed in gun related accidents asking when the #AllLivesMatter folks are going to have a rally.
Shhhhhhh…those were rhetorical questions. I already know why.
77th such incident. Journal is exaggerating here. Cross check another source
Quick check on Washington Post reports 43 incidents where TODDLERS (aged up to 3 years) shot either themselves or others in US from January to mid October 2015.
Dread to think what number is if older children – say up to 10 year olds – is included…
So looks like the number in article probably understates the issue…
Journalist, okay, I’ll bite. What is the precise number?
One incident like this is too much.
Trump…will sort it all out.
Awful tragedy.
Disgusting to see the anti gun lobby using this poor woman’s death for political purposes.
Mocking her death.
What an absolutely disgusting shower.
(I’m not one bit surprised)
Tragic yet so avoidable. OK so many Americans defend their rights to bear arms but for God sake keep them safe and away from those no old enough to know better. This poor kid will now have to face the truth at some stage in life when he is old enough that he killed his own mother and it was his father’s fault for not securing the gun in a locked place away from harm
They often neglect that their constitution says they have the right to bear arms “as part of an organised militia”.
Only in America. Utter madness.
her last words to her mother, that part was what made it more chilling. Very sad accident end of story. No what ifs or the baby should of been strapped in blah blah blah.RIP
Dumb kid
Darwins theory at play again
Compare and Contrast Japan and the USA:
In 2008, the U.S. had over 12 thousand firearm-related homicides. All of Japan experienced only 11, fewer than were killed at the Aurora shooting alone.
And that was a big year: 2006 saw an astounding TWO, and when that number jumped to 22 in 2007, it became a national scandal in Japan.
By comparison, also in 2008, 587 Americans were killed just by guns that had discharged accidentally.
The United States just might eventually learn, however it’s going to be the hard way !!
that’s the price you pay if your a gun slinging nut job
The price of freedom…..
If there was a one year old with a gun sitting beside the two year old,this would not have happened.
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