A Milwaukee mother was accidentally shot and killed by her 2-year-old son who found his father’s loaded weapon on the floor of the back seat on Tuesday.
Patrice Price, 26, was driving on a Milwaukee highway when the toddler picked up the weapon, pointed it at the driver’s seat and fired. The bullet travelled through the driver’s seat, striking Price in the back.
The car she was driving rear ended another vehicle and came to a stop on Highway 175 in Milwaukee. She was pronounced dead at the scene.
The condition of the other driver was not released.
“Initial witness accounts indicate that a child in the back seat of the vehicle got ahold of a gun and discharged the firearm, sending a single bullet into the driver’s back,” the sheriff’s department said in a statement.
The mother-of-3 was driving with her two sons, ages 1 and 2, when she was killed.
The 2-year-old reportedly retrieved the .40-caliber handgun from the floor of the back seat behind the driver’s seat.
The 1-year-old was in the front passenger seat. The children were not in baby car seats as required by law.
The dead woman’s father, Andre Price, told FOX6 News his daughter was driving her boyfriend’s car at the time of the fatal accident.
“I have a knot in my chest. They won’t even let me see my daughter. I wanted to hold my daughter for one last time,” he said.
The children’s father was a security guard who failed to secure his weapon in his vehicle.
