Racial disparities in toddler shootings too?
by digby
I wrote about the epidemic of toddlers getting their hands on guns and shooting themselves and others yesterday. This adds an even more depressing dimension to it:
Two young boys — ages 2 and 3 years old — died within a week of one another last month after finding a parent’s gun stashed in a bag and then accidentally shooting themselves.
Kiyan Shelton Enoch, 2, fatally shot himself April 20 with his mother’s gun, which he found in her purse. Holston Cole, 3, found a gun in his father’s backpack and fatally shot himself April 26.
Their cases attracted national attention, because the two boys were among four toddlers who shot and killed themselves that week — and among 23 toddlers who’d fatally shot themselves or someone else since Jan. 1.
If that seems like a lot, that’s because it is.
The two boys’ deaths were tragically similar — but the outcome for their parents was very different.
You can probably guess what the difference is:
White parents appear more likely to escape charges than black parents.
Demarqo Smith, who is black, was charged with involuntary manslaughter and reckless conduct after his 6-year-old daughter, Ja’Mecca, found a loaded gun between two sofa cushions in her family’s Atlanta apartment.
Christopher Ashkins, who is also black, was charged in November with second-degree child cruelty, possession of a gun by a convicted felon and drug possession after his girlfriend’s 2-year-old son found his handgun and fatally shot himself.
The 37-year-old Ashkins, who was on parole for cocaine-related charges, was not home when Jayden Clay accidentally shot himself in the face at his family’s Atlanta apartment.
Grant Dennington, who is white, was not charged after his 2-year-old son found the handgun he’d placed on the bed Oct. 27 while using the restroom and fatally shot himself in an Atlanta suburb.
“We’re talking a minute or two,” said Acworth Police Chief Wayne Dennard, who described the father as a responsible gun owner. “We spent a lot of time talking to the dad, interviewing other family members. This was not routine on his part. He always took the necessary precautions.”
The NRA thinks such parents have suffered enough. Apparently the police agree. As long as the parent’s aren’t black. There can never be enough suffering for them.
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