Posted on 07/29/2023 7:19:06 AM PDT by grundle
Indiana parents have been charged after their 5-year-old son allegedly shot and killed his 16-month-old brother. Police say both young children had drugs in their systems.
Around 3:00 p.m. on March 28, officers from the Lafayette Police Department responded to a report that a child wasn't breathing at an apartment building in Lafayette — about an hour north of Indianapolis. Cops discovered a 1-year-old boy deceased and determined the cause of death was a gunshot wound to the head.
After an investigation, police said that 16-month-old Isiah Johnson had been shot and killed by his 5-year-old brother.
Law & Crime reported, "Following the death, toxicology results reportedly showed the toddler tested positive for marijuana. His older brother allegedly had cocaine in his system."
Deonta Johnson, 27, and Shatia Welch, 24, were arrested on Monday afternoon during a traffic stop in LaPorte, Indiana. According to a statement by the Lafayette Police Department, the parents were charged with neglect resulting in death, neglect resulting in bodily injury, conspiracy to commit dealing a narcotic drug, dealing a narcotic drug, possession of a narcotic, conspiracy to commit dealing marijuana, dealing marijuana, possession of marijuana, and possession of paraphernalia. Johnson was also charged with obstruction of justice.
Welch wasn't at the apartment at the time of the shooting, and Johnson was asleep on a couch inside the apartment, according to NBC News.
Johnson allegedly told investigators that he was awakened by a "loud boom" and found his youngest son in the bedroom.
Lafayette police lieutenant Matt Gard told Journal & Courier, "When I arrived on scene, I don't believe any life-saving measures were taken" on the toddler.
WXIN reported, "At the time, he denied that Isiah Johnson had been shot and denied that he had a gun in the apartment. However, he later told officers that Welch, the leaseholder of the apartment, did own a gun.
Welch allegedly told police that the gun was locked away under her bed in a box. According to the affidavit, the mother admitted to investigators that she had lost one of the two sets of keys — but that her 5-year-old son "would not know what the keys belonged to."
Police said they found 93 fentanyl pills, marijuana, and paraphernalia inside the apartment.
Authorities stated that surveillance footage from the apartment complex showed Johnson leaving his unit with a bag after the shooting and placing it in a car. A search warrant was obtained, and police reportedly found marijuana stashed inside the same vehicle.
The father's trial is scheduled to start on Nov. 28, and the mother's trial is expected to begin on Dec. 12.
Reading comprehension alert: the baby who had marijuana in his system was killed by a bullet. He died with marijuana not from marijuana.
Yo lefties! “Try This In A Small Town”!
I stand corrected... However, the 5-year old had probably been subjected to it from the time he was in the womb (especially if the toddler had it in his system), so who knows what damage that did to his fledgling mental capacity (along with the coke, of course).
All I can say is “good God!”
No gonna look.
smh
Drug deal gone wrong.
(Too soon?)
Well, when you’re already on fire it doesn’t make sense to douse yourself in gasoline. Pointing to one thing that causes problems is not a defense of something else that causes even more problems.
The world is full of bad behaviors that cause a host of societal ills, but a responsible society doesn’t respond to that by just eliminating all laws and deciding that anything goes. A truly moral society recognizes that some things are just inherently morally wrong, and endeavors to protect the populace from their effects. I’ve said many times on FR that the blame for today’s depraved and frankly evil culture rests far more on the heads of the morally lazy “live and let live” types who refuse to take a stand on anything than it does on the leftists pushing the depravity. Edmund Burke (see my tagline) understood this, realizing that evil never sleeps and is constantly on the prowl, but it is the good people and whether or not they choose to resist evil who determine the outcome.
All of which comes back to why I have no use for Libertarians and their self-serving, amoral (at best) political philosophy, and is also why I adamantly oppose legalization of harmful drugs. American-style constitutional liberty is not a license for “anything goes” licentiousness. “Liberty” in that context did not mean “libertine”, and is in fact far from it. That was never the intent behind our Bill of Rights nor the body of the Constitution. John Adams made that abundantly clear when he said, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
I trust society over government.
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