News : Tragedy!

Idaho toddler shoots and kills his mother inside Walmart

Police in Idaho say a two-year-old
boy shot and killed his 29-year-old
mother in a Walmart store after
finding the weapon in her purse.
The Kootenai county sheriff’s
office said Veronica Rutledge was
shopping with her son and three
other children in the small town
of Hayden when the boy, sitting in
the front of the shopping cart,
found the gun and shot her at
about 10.20am local time.
The sheriff’s spokesman Stu
Miller said Rutledge, who was
from Blackfoot in southeastern
Idaho, had a concealed weapons
permit. She was visiting relatives
in the area, he added.
Miller said the young boy had
reached into his mother’s purse
and grabbed a small caliber
handgun, which discharged once.
“It appears to be a pretty tragic
accident,” he added.
Rutledge’s husband was not in the
store when the shooting happened
but arrived shortly after the
shooting. All the children were
taken to a relative’s house.
The victim’s father-in-law, Terry
Rutledge, told Associated Press
that she “was a beautiful, young,
loving mother.”
“She was not the least bit
irresponsible,” he said. “She was
taken much too soon.”
The shooting happened near the
store’s electronics section. Police
reviewed store video to determine
the shooting was accidental, the
Associated Press and local media
reported .
A Walmart spokesperson called
the incident “very sad,” and said
the store was “fully cooperating
with the sheriffs deputies as they
investigate this matter”.
The store was closed for the
evening but will reopen at 6am
Wednesday, according to
information provided to the
sheriff’s office by store managers.
Hayden is a northern Idaho town
of 13,000 people, about 35 miles
east of Spokane, Washington.
In November, a woman in
Oklahoma was fatally shot by her
three-year-old with a semi-
automatic handgun. Police said it
appeared the child picked up the
gun while his mother was
changing a one-year-old’s diaper.