Missouri Man Charged in Shooting Death of 8-Month-Old Son [View all]
A St. Louis-area father was charged Wednesday with first-degree murder in the death of his 8-month-old son a shooting an investigator says happened after the man threatened his wife who told him during a car ride she wanted a divorce.
Diata Crockett, 34, turned himself in to his attorney Wednesday, a day after the shooting and intense manhunt that followed. Hours later, St. Louis prosecutors charged him with murder, armed criminal action, domestic assault, endangering a child, unlawful possession and unlawful use of a weapon.
St. Louis police investigator Daniel Sweeney said in a probable cause statement that Crockett and his wife were in a car Tuesday with the three youngest of their six children when the wife told him during an argument she wanted a divorce. Crockett then hit her with a semi-automatic handgun and threatened to kill her, steering the vehicle toward a secluded area known to the couple, Sweeney wrote in the statement included with Wednesday's criminal complaint.
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Crockett's criminal record includes convictions for burglary, assault, drug-related charges, resisting arrest and forgery, online court records show. The Missouri Department of Corrections said he was imprisoned in June 2011 and given parole in December 2011. He violated that parole and has had a warrant for his arrest since January 2013, according to Corrections Department records.
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/mother-suspect-infant-shooting-urges-surrender-39365273
With both a criminal record and a parole violation this low-life was still able to easily get a gun in Missouri, because Second Amendment "rights" are more important than the life of an 8-month old baby.
The right-wing gun lobby is just as responsible for this child's death as are the person(s) who supplied the gun to a known criminal, and the criminal himself. Sensible gun regulation and control could have prevented this and hundreds of other needless deaths in this country.
It is past time to put the brakes on this health menace to our society through legislated regulation of lethal weapons.