Woman charged after three-year-old boy shoots himself

Prosecutors have charged a Macomb County woman in connection with the non-fatal shooting of three-yearold boy in Detroit.

Janette Ann Smith, 30, of Roseville, has been named in an arrest warrant with careless or reckless use of a firearm, according to the Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office. The charge is a misdemeanor.

Authorities say the incident was the latest act of a child being struck by gunfire caused by an adult allegedly not properly supervising their weapons.

“It is getting very difficult to come up with new ways to say the same thing over and over again. If you own a gun and you know young children will be in your orbit, secure it so that there will be no access,” Wayne Prosecutor Kym Worthy said in a statement.

According to prosecutors, the incident happened about 4:45 p.m. Friday at a home at the Martin Luther King Apartments on the 1880 block of Lafayette Street, near Chene, in the city’s downtown section.

Investigators said Smith went to visit the child’s mother to pick up some food that had been prepared for her.

She took off her coat with a handgun in the pocket and hung it on the chair in the living room. When she went into the kitchen to speak with the child’s mother, there was a loud bang in the living room, prosecutors said.

Authorities said the boy had found the gun and shot himself in the head. He was privately transported to a local hospital by his mother and is currently receiving treatment for head injuries. At last report on Saturday, he was said to be in stable condition.

Worthy stressed the urgency for gun owners to keep their weapons out of the hands of children, who think they are playing with toys.

“If you are traveling with a gun, follow the law while doing so, and by all means make sure that children cannot get to it,” she said. “