A Michigan toddler pulled a loaded gun out of their backpack, causing alarm at a metro Detroit daycare facility. No one was injured, but the public is pressuring a prosecutor to hold the family accountable.
Both parents are expected to be arraigned Thursday, marking it the latest case in Michigan where a parent is held criminally liable for their child’s actions. Gun owners in Michigan are also required to securely lock and store their firearms to prevent minors from accessing the weapons since 2024. A separate law went into effect in 2025 that required all school districts to distribute information from the state health department about the law.
In a statement posted on Facebook, the Canton Township Police Department said both parents will appear in court Thursday morning. It didn’t reveal what charges they face.
The incident happened Monday morning when a teacher spotted the toddler with a gun still in its holster, Detroit’s NBC affiliate Local 4 reported. Joseph Bialy, police chief of the Canton Township Police Department, hailed the staff’s quick action but noted how uneasy the security footage made him feel.
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“This is an alarming incident, and it’s hard to watch that video even knowing that the outcome is a safe one,” Bialy said at a press conference.
He added that one of the child’s parents was arrested, and another is a police officer in a nearby town. The parent’s department is conducting an internal investigation, Bialy said. The daycare told Local 4 the family has since been unenrolled.
News of the incident has led locals to call for parental accountability, especially when one parent is reportedly in law enforcement.
“So will the parents be above the law, or will they be held accountable like they would charge any other person that this happens to,” wrote Facebook user Lora Osborn. “No child should ever have access to a loaded gun.”
The Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office confirmed to Straight Arrow it has the case, but charges haven’t yet been filed.
“What an ignorant and irresponsible parent to leave a weapon to where their toddler can get possession of it and take it to a school,” Another user, Bernice Marie Starr, wrote on Facebook.
Parents across the nation charged for child’s actions
One of the most notable cases of parental criminal charges stemmed from the Oxford High School mass shooting where Ethan Crumbley killed four students. His parents, Jennifer and James Crumbley, were sentenced to 10 to 15 years in prison in 2024 on four counts of involuntary manslaughter.
Ethan is serving a lifetime prison sentence without the possibility of parole.
Testimony at the elder Crumbleys’ trial focused on how their failures to pull Ethan out of school and secure weapons directly led to the 2023 massacre. Prosecutors and expert witnesses argued that the parents had a duty to help their son before the situation became dire, but they didn’t.
Meanwhile, prosecutors nationwide took similar approaches to show how parents of mass shooters ignored warning signs or calls that their child is in danger of harming others. In the cases of Colin Gray and Jeffrey Rupnow, the parents were accused of purchasing firearms for their children.
In the case of Colin Gray, he was sentenced to 15 years in prison in July. He gave his son Colt an AR-15-style weapon as a Christmas present instead of seeking psychological treatment for his son. Colt went on to kill four people at Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia, with the same firearm. Colt is serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole.
Rupnow faces a criminal trial for contributing to his daughter’s 2024 shooting at Abundant Life Christian School in Madison, Wisconsin. She killed two people and wounded six others before taking her own life. Police, as in similar cases, asserted Rupnow gifted his daughter a .22 caliber handgun in 2023 and later helped her buy a 9 mm semiautomatic weapon in 2022.
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