Veronica Pyatt San Bernardino, California mother, teen son, arrested after boy accidentally shoots his toddler sister in the back seat only to keep driving.
A California mother and her 14-year-old teen son are facing felony charges after the son accidentally shot his 20 month old toddler half-sister as they drove.
Veronica Pyatt, 37, the teen, and Pyatt’s 20-month-old daughter were in a vehicle in San Bernardino Tuesday afternoon, San Bernardino police said. The teen was ‘manipulating a loaded firearm in the back seat’ of the vehicle, police said. The gun discharged, striking the toddler girl in the right upper leg.
Instead of stopping, the mother continued to drive after the boy notifying the mother his gun going off.
Pyatt later told police she hadn’t realized her daughter was shot according to CBSLA.
She still hadn’t learned of her daughter’s injury when they arrived home and she unloaded groceries while the teen took the little girl out of the vehicle ‘and disposed of the firearm and other evidence in a trashcan.’
Previous instances of child abuse/neglect?
The 14-year-old finally told his mother the little girl had been wounded once all three were inside the home. Pyatt took the little girl to the Community Hospital of San Bernardino, where hospital staff called police. The little girl was later transported to Loma Linda University Medical Center with non-life-threatening injuries.
Police — who said that Pyatt never tried to take the gun from her son, physically examine the children, or call police — arrested both mother and child on multiple felony charges and handed the case to the San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office.
Pyatt who was booked on suspicion of child abuse, remained held on $100,000 and had been scheduled to appear in court Thursday. Her son was booked into a San Bernardino County Juvenile detention center where he faced unspecified charges.
It remained unclear how or where the boy came across the gun. The whereabouts of the children’s father was also not clear.
Child and Family Services are conducting their own investigation, police said.
