Avis Damone Coward: Michigan man faces charges as 2-year-old shoots himself with his illegally possessed gun
MICHIGAN, UNITED STATES: The federal prosecutors announced on Wednesday that Avis Damone Coward, a Michigan man, has been charged with illegally possessing the handgun used by a 2-year-old to shoot himself in a car and subsequently burning the vehicle.
The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of Michigan revealed that a grand jury indicted Coward on charges of tampering with evidence, conspiracy to tamper with evidence, and being a felon in possession of a firearm.
Avis Damone Coward's attorney entered non-guilty plea
On October 24, the child shot himself while the car was parked at a gas station in Lansing, according to the prosecutor's office. The U.S. attorney's office stated in a statement that Coward gave the child to another person who drove the boy to the gas station.
Then, according to the office, he grabbed his gun, broke the window where the bullet had exited with his fist, and drove off. Later on, the sport-utility vehicle was discovered in a field, burned.
On Wednesday, Coward entered a non-guilty plea to all three charges, according to Heath Lynch, his attorney, NBC reported.
Although Lynch acknowledged that the child's shooting was a terrible tragedy, he maintained that Coward should be granted the presumption of innocence and that it is still unclear what evidence connects him to the weapon or any conspiracy.
Lynch's email read, "The process needs to run its course before anyone rushes to judgment, even under circumstances when there is pressure to hold someone responsible for an unimaginable loss of a child."
Child's mother faces charges for firearm possession
Federal prosecutors said that 26-year-old Emma Huver, the mother of the child, is also accused of being a felon in possession of a firearm. She has also been charged by the state with involuntary manslaughter, according to WILX.
According to the attorney's office, Gina Schieberl, a 26-year-old woman, is also facing federal charges of conspiring to tamper with evidence and tampering with evidence.
According to a research letter published in the New England Journal of Medicine last year, children and teenagers will die from firearm-related causes for the first time in 2020.
A study that examined data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention discovered that the number of children dying from firearms rose to an all-time high in 2021.
Lead study author and pediatric trauma surgeon Dr. Chethan Sathya of Northwell Health in New York described the firearm deaths as "undoubtedly one of our chief public health crises in this country."
