Inset top: Sturlin Minion Jr. (WJBK/YouTube). Inset bottom: Halisa Lloydnette-Christine Brown (Detroit Police Department). Background: the apartment complex where Sturlin shot himself (WJBK/YouTube).
A Michigan mother was sentenced after her unsupervised 5-year-old son shot himself in the face as he played with a loaded gun left on a dresser while jumping on a bed in his apartment in front of his four siblings.
Halisa Lloydnette-Christine Brown, 25, was sentenced on Friday to six months imprisonment in the death of Sturlin Minion Jr., according to the Wayne County Sheriff’s office . Court records show that she pleaded guilty in July to involuntary manslaughter.
Brown and the boy’s father, Sturlin Markese Minion Sr., 33, were charged with involuntary manslaughter , second-degree child abuse, and firearm violations. Minion was also charged with being a felon in possession of a firearm.
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The tragedy happened on Dec. 9. Detroit police were dispatched at 1:24 p.m. to an apartment complex in the 16500 block of Greenfield Road for a reported shooting, prosecutors said in a news release . Once there, officers found the child suffering from a gunshot wound to the face. The boy was taken to a hospital, where he died. The parents were quickly arrested, and four other children, ages 8 to 4, were taken into the care of Children’s Protective Services.