MILWAUKEE — A Wisconsin woman is facing charges after a toddler was shot and seriously injured by a 6-year-old child.
Shelly Baublit, the mother of the child who pulled the trigger and aunt of the victim, is charged with child neglect, WITI reported.
Police told WTMJ that at the time of the shooting, Shelly Baublit was supposed to be caring for the children, but instead left several children, including her 6-year-old son and 3-year-old nephew, home alone while she went to get food. One of the children inside the home told an officer that the kids had all been playing hide-and-seek when they heard a gunshot, and then saw the 6-year-old run from the room where the 3-year-old was found.
In a criminal complaint obtained by WDJT, police said Baublit called the 3-year-old’s mother screaming, “I’m so scared.” When the child’s mother arrived, her son was wrapped in a blanket on the couch, and Baublit told her that she had not called for help and that she “was so scared” and “they taking me to jail,” WDJT reported.
“She just sat him there, waited for me to come and get him,” Daionna Baublit, the 3-year-old’s mother, told WITI. “It was really a big problem for me.”
The criminal complaint said that Baublit never called 911 because she “panicked,” WDJT reported.
Baublit told detectives that she had purchased the 9mm Ruger for $300 from a “crackhead male” for protection after issues with her upstairs neighbor, WDJT reported. The gun was not secured with a gun lock, and police said her children knew that she had a gun.
The 3-year-old, identified as Prevail Jordan, was released from the hospital and is expected to make a full recovery, his mother told WITI. Daionna told the station that the 6-year-old threatened Prevail before the shooting.
“(The 6-year-old) showed the gun to my baby, told my baby he was going to shoot him — and he shot my son,” Daionna told WITI.
Daionna told WITI that the bullet tore through Prevail’s bladder, appendix and bowels.