S.C. mom won’t face charges in child’s death on Christmas Eve

COLUMBIA, S.C. (WIS) - The Columbia Police Department said a woman whose child was fatally shot on Christmas Eve will not face charges.

Police responded to Harbison Boulevard the afternoon of Dec. 24, 2024 and found 4-year-old Jah’el Walker unresponsive. Walker was taken to the hospital for treatment where he was pronounced dead.

D said Walker’s mother had stepped away from the car to go into a local store less than three minutes before the shooting. After the shooting, one of Walker’s siblings, who was in the car with him, ran inside the store to tell their mother that Walker had been shot.

After the shooting, a memorial ing Walker was erected in front of Once Upon A Child, the thrift store on Harbison Boulevard.

Many gun storage advocates in the community say situations like this were exactly what they were afraid would happen once constitutional carry ed last year.

“There need to be laws requiring parents, adults, to securely store their firearms so that children cannot get to them,” said Patty Tuttle, Midlands local group Lead for Moms Demand Action. “There was a young child in the Upstate that died because of an unsecured firearm. We hear stories about it all the time. It is an adult’s responsibility to secure their firearms and they should be held responsible if they’re not doing so.”

D said determining factors for their decision not to charge the mother include:

• No evidence of underlying criminal activity
• The child’s mother and father are lawful gun owners
• The gun is normally unloaded and stored in the vehicle’s console with the magazine in a separate location
• There was a lack of communication between parents regarding new location of the loaded gun

Police said the gun had been placed in a bag inside the car at the time of the shooting and that the mother was not aware of its new location.

D said it was not required for the gun to have been stored in a “secure area within the vehicle” under current state law but did not specify which law.

A provision of H. 3594, commonly known as constitutional carry, states “There are no restrictions of guns inside vehicles. Guns can be stored anywhere inside the vehicle openly or concealed.”

Before permit-less carry legislation took effect in the state in March of last year, gun owners were required to secure their guns in a closed glove box, center console, trunk, or secure container. But, the new law eliminated that responsibility.

Police also noted both parents had been cooperative with law enforcement after the shooting. D ultimately decided the shooting was accidental.

“For this to be on the permitless carry law, I think it was an atrocity that she wasn’t charged,” Tuttle continued. “When there are looser gun laws, more people will die and this is an example of that.”

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