RANKIN, Pa. — Nearly a month after a 4-year-old was shot in Rankin, Allegheny County Police have filed charges against his mother.
Channel 11 first reported on this incident on June 24, the day after ACPD said the 4-year-old was shot inside a home on Rankin Boulevard and was taken to Children’s Hospital for treatment.
The department now says that around 9:30 p.m. on June 23, Ruth Hicks called 911 to report her son was attacked by the family dog at the Rankin Boulevard home. He was taken to Children’s with injuries to his wrist and pelvic region.
ACPD’s Homicide Unit was contacted the next morning, after hospital personnel determined the boy’s injuries were not consistent with a dog attack and it appeared he was shot once in the pelvis.
Through witness interviews, detectives say they learned Hicks, 42, left a gun in her purse in the living room, where two kids were playing unsupervised and she was upstairs in her bedroom.
A criminal complaint states that Hicks initially told police her gun was unloaded and in a safe on June 23. But when investigators re-interviewed her, she said the gun was loaded and on a desk in the living room.
The other child in the room with the boy during the incident told police she heard “big boom” and then he was on the floor crying.
Detectives say following the incident, Hicks told her teenage daughter to dispose of evidence, including ammunition and a spent shell casing. Per the complaint, the daughter, who wasn’t home during the shooting, told police she threw the evidence off the Rankin Bridge into the river.
Hicks is facing multiple charges, including endangering the welfare of children, corruption of minors and tampering with physical evidence.
Online court documents indicate Hicks has not yet been taken into custody.
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