A woman was charged with child endangerment Wednesday after her 5-year-old daughter accidentally shot herself inside a home on Chicago’s West Side, police said.
The girl accidentally shot herself in the abdomen just after 8 p.m. Tuesday after getting a hold of a handgun inside a house in the 3700 block of West Ferdinand Street in East Garfield Park, police said. Family members then brought the 5-year-old in to Rush University Medical Center before the girl was transferred to Stroger Hospital, where she was listed in serious condition, police said.
Larrinita Starks, 22, was charged with child endangerment after allegedly leaving a firearm unsecured in the presence of a child, police said. After being taken into custody, she was released on bond. She is due in court March 16.
Police sources told NBC 5 that Starks is the young girl’s mother.
Authorities are still looking into how the little girl got her hands on the firearm, and if the gun was legally owned.
From the beginning of 2014 through the first half of 2016, there were 42 children injured or killed in accidental shootings, according to a study by the Associated Press and USA Today, with 30 of those shootings taking place in Chicago.
