| Salt Lake Tribune | - |
This
photo shows Wal-Mart with a shopping cart in the foreground in Hayden,
Idaho, Tuesday, Dec. 30, 2014. A 2-year-old boy accidentally shot and
killed his mother after he reached into her purse at the northern Idaho
Wal-Mart and her concealed gun fired, ...
WWW.SLTRIB.COM
DEC 31, 2014
‘Tragic accident’: 2-year-old fatally shoots mom in Idaho Wal-Mart
First Published 31 minutes ago
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Updated 31 minutes ago
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Hayden, Idaho • A shopping trip to a northern
Idaho Wal-Mart turned tragic when a 2-year-old boy reached into his
mother’s purse, grabbed her concealed gun and accidentally killed the
woman, authorities said.
Veronica J. Rutledge, 29, who was described as a
loving mother, was shopping Tuesday with her son and three other
children when the young boy grabbed the small-caliber handgun, which
discharged one time, Kootenai County sheriff’s spokesman Stu Miller
said. Miller said the boy had been left in a shopping cart.
Rutledge was from Blackfoot in southeastern Idaho, and her family had come to the area to visit relatives.
She was an employee of the Idaho National
Laboratory, The Spokesman-Review of Spokane, Washington, reported. The
Idaho Falls laboratory supports the U.S. Department of Energy in nuclear
and energy research and national defense.
Responding deputies found Rutledge dead in the
Wal-Mart in Hayden, a politically conservative town of about 9,000
people about 40 miles northeast of Spokane, Washington.
"It appears to be a pretty tragic accident," Miller said.
The victim’s father-in-law, Terry Rutledge,
told The Associated Press that Veronica Rutledge "was a beautiful,
young, loving mother."
"She was not the least bit irresponsible," Terry Rutledge said. "She was taken much too soon."
The woman’s husband arrived to the store in
Idaho’s northern panhandle shortly after the shooting around 10:20 a.m.
Tuesday, Miller said. All the children were taken to a relative’s house.
Brooke Buchanan, a spokeswoman for Wal-Mart,
said in a statement that the shooting was a "very sad and tragic
accident." The Hayden store closed for the rest of the day.
"We are working closely with the local sheriff’s department while they investigate what happened," Buchanan said.
Idaho National Laboratory senior chemical
engineer Vince Maio worked with Rutledge on a research paper about using
glass ceramic to store nuclear waste, The Spokesman-Review reported.
Maio said he was immediately impressed with her.
"She had a lot of maturity for her age," he
told the newspaper. "Her work was impeccable. She found new ways to do
things that we did before and she found ways to do them better."
There do not appear to be reliable national
statistics about the number of accidental fatalities involving children
handling guns.
In neighboring Washington state, a 3-year-old
boy was seriously injured in November when he accidentally shot himself
in the face in a home in Lake Stevens, about 30 miles north of Seattle.
In April, a 2-year-old boy apparently shot and
killed his 11-year-old sister while they and their siblings played with a
gun inside a Philadelphia home. Authorities said the gun was believed
to have been brought into the home by the mother’s boyfriend.
Idaho lawmakers passed legislation earlier this
year allowing concealed weapons on the state’s public college and
university campuses.
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