“Child brings gun to Michigan school: Two adults charged and recurring incidents raise concern”

Two adults have been charged after a 7-year-old child brought a gun to an elementary school in Grand Rapids, Michigan, US, authorities said on Tuesday (May 16).

On May 3, a “second-grade” student, a level equivalent to CE1 in France, arrived at the Cesar E. Chavez primary school with an unloaded firearm in his backpack, said the district attorney. Kent County (Michigan), Chris Becker, at a press conference.

The mother, Aubrey Wilson, 32, has been charged with child abuse, while her fiancee, Chelsea Berkley, 29, is accused of being a criminal in possession of a firearm. She is in custody on unrelated charges, according to a statement from the city of Grand Rapids.

For the prosecutor, “it is obvious that a person brought the weapon to the house, and that the other put the weapon in a place accessible to the child”.

Recurring incidents

The charges follow a series of cases involving adults responsible for children who brought firearms to school. On January 6, an elementary school teacher in Newport News, Virginia, was seriously injured when a 6-year-old student shot her. A shooting qualified as “intentional” by justice.

Blaming parents is recent but more and more frequent. Last month, a Michigan appeals court ruled in favor of prosecutors seeking to bring the parents of shooter Ethan Crumbley to trial for manslaughter. Their then 21-year-old son shot four high school students near Detroit in November 2021.

Grand Rapids Police Chief Eric Winstrom said just a week after the child was found at school with the semi-automatic weapon, another student showed up at school with a gun, this time loaded.

“I have 23 years of experience in the police, and this is the first time that I have encountered such a small child with a gun at school… And seeing him twice in one week is very alarming Winstrom said.

The loaded weapon was found in the backpack of a third-grade student at Stocking Elementary School, CNN reported.

400 million firearms in circulation in the country

These gun finds prompted the Grand Rapids School District to announce a backpack ban, citing four gun confiscations this year alone. Another Michigan school district, Flint Community Schools, also banned backpacks starting May 1, citing safety concerns.

According to a CNN tally, there were at least 16 school shootings in the United States in which at least one person was injured between the start of the year and March 27. The date on which six people, including three children, were killed in a shooting at the Covenant School in Nashville.