Mpls. police find gun that wounded boy, 3, tucked in couch
The gun that was fired and critically wounded a 3-year-old boy last week in a north Minneapolis home was found by police tucked in a couch cushion shortly after the incident, according to charges filed against the child's parents.
Maceo A.C. Beckley, 30, and Cydnie C. Zimmerman, 30, were charged in Hennepin County District Court with felony endangerment of child by firearm in connection with the shooting around 8:45 p.m. on June 5 in a duplex near the intersection of N. Sheridan and N. 23rd avenues.
While being questioned by police at North Memorial Health Hospital that night, where his son was being treated, Beckley told police he needed to make a phone call, the charges read.
"Officers later realized ... Beckley had disappeared," according to the charges. As of late Monday afternoon, police had yet to find him. In a separate case, Beckley is scheduled to go on trial July 11 in Hennepin County on a felony count of threats of violence.
Zimmerman was charged by summons, and is scheduled to appear in court on June 30. Court records do not list an attorney for her, and contact information for her was not immediately available.
Neither police in their public statements nor prosecutors in the complaint have said who fired the gun. The charges against both parents reference multiple children in the home at the time of the gunfire. Authorities also have not released the boy's identity.
The boy has had at least two surgeries since being shot. The bullet left entrances and exit wounds, and damaged his bowel and hip bone, the charges read.
According to the charges:
Officers met with parents at the hospital. Zimmerman initially said the boy was outside when he was shot, while she and Beckley were inside the home. Statements from neighbors and a review of the area outside determined that claim to be false. Also, police searched the home and saw blood on the stairs leading to a bedroom and more blood in that room.
The search turned up a .40-caliber handgun in the cushion of a living room couch, and in the bedroom a bullet and a spent cartridge, a holster with a 10-millimeter magazine, loose ammunition in various locations, and a gun safe. Much of what was located, including the handgun, were "accessible to the children in the home," the charges read.
Zimmerman later told police that the gun belonged to Beckley and it was in the bedroom when her son was shot. She said Beckley set it down and left the bedroom.
The mother "expressed surprise that the gun was recovered in the living room and was adamant that ... Beckley was not in the bedroom at the time the gun was shot," the complaints read.
