Lansing mother jailed after 2-year-old son dies in gun accident

LANSING – Emma Huver claimed she was playing on her phone when she the young son accidentally shot himself in the head with a loaded gun, he found in the vehicle in which they were sitting.

Prosecutors said there was a more likely scenario: Hoover allowed the boy to hold the gun, and it discharged as she tried to take it away.

Either way, Hoover is responsible for what happened, a judge said.

“It doesn’t matter which one was true,” Ingham County Circuit Judge Joyce Draganchuk told Huver before sending her to prison. “You were the one responsible for protecting this child.”

Huver, 27, was sentenced to 8 to 60 years for manslaughter, 5 to 15 years for carrying a concealed weapon and a mandatory 2 years for possession of a firearm. Minimum 8 years for manslaughter was negotiated as part of a deal in which she pleaded no contest to a fourth-time habitual offender in early November.

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Hoover will have to serve the sentence for the firearm offense before he begins serving the other two sentences, which run concurrently with each other. That means he will have to serve at least 10 years, minus the 274 days he had already spent in custody.

The state court sentences will run concurrently with the 5-year sentence he received for a weapons offense in federal court.

The shooting that killed 34-month-old King Muhammad occurred Oct. 24, 2023, as he and his mother waited at a gas station in the 3000 block of Dunckel Road, authorities said: The gun he was wielding it belonged to Avis Coward, who had entered the gas station.

hoover, Coward and a third person were charged and convicted in federal court in connection with the incident.

While pleading guilty in federal court, Huver admitted to possessing a purple Smith & Wesson 9mm semi-automatic handgun and knowing she had a prior felony conviction in Ingham County Circuit Court. She said she was playing on her phone when she heard what she described as an “explosion,” court records show.

But in a sentencing brief in the state court case, prosecutors cited circumstantial evidence indicating that Hoover allowed the boy to handle the gun so she could photograph him with it and that it discharged while she was trying to take it

They referenced comments made by Huver to other people and noted that the gun had both a thumb safety and a grip safety, meaning the grip would have to be depressed before the gun could fire. It’s unlikely a 2-year-old could fire the gun, they said.

On Friday, Assistant Ingham County Prosecutor Nattalie Macomber said Huver did not intend for her son to be hurt, but she shifted the blame onto others and did not take responsibility for what happened. To describe the incident as a tragedy “is an understatement,” she told Draganchuk.

Ingham County Assistant Public Defender Robert Palmer said Huver does not agree to all of the allegations in the sentencing memorandum. He said Huver has shown remorse to her attorneys.

“It was obviously an incredible tragedy,” he said. “She will have to live with the tragedy and pain of losing her son for the rest of her life.”

Huver told Draganchuk that she would never have allowed her son to play with the gun.

“I just wasn’t paying attention,” she said.

Contact Ken Palmer at [email protected]. Follow X @KBPalm_lsj.