Father of Boy Who Fatally Shot Brother Sentenced (brace yourself)

[Robb]

A Minneapolis father whose four-year-old son shot and killed his younger brother with a gun left under a pillow learned his fate Thursday.

Even though Kao Xiong didn’t pull the trigger, a jury convicted him for his son’s death. Xiong was sentenced to 10 years of probation, 100 hours of community service, 100 hours of service in the Sentencing to Service program, and 30 days in jail already served.

Back in December, Xiong’s four-year-old son got a hold of a loaded gun that didn’t have a working safety on it. Xiong had hidden the gun under a bedroom pillow where that little boy found it and accidentally shot and killed his two-year-old brother.

Read More: http://kstp.com/news/stories/s3081134.shtml

Well, that should deter people from leaving weapons unsecured.

[SoCalMusicLover]

1. An Honest Mistake

Maybe they should prosecute the 4 year old. But whatever you do, don't blame the gun either.

[Robb]

2. The gun had a better legal team, clearly. nt

[The Straight Story]

3. What should be the punishment if your kid drowns in your pool? (nt)

[Bandit]

9. If your negligence results in a childs death you should pay the consequences.

It matters not if the child drowned in a swimming or found your loaded weapon and fired it, or any other situation that was only due to your negligence.....

[Squinch]

22. What should be the punishment if your kid eats the rat poison you left out on the kitchen table?

In an ice cream dish.

That's a little closer as an analogy.

[Aerows]

40. Divorce, loss of custody

and alimony/child support?

Since in this case it's the father, I suspect that's in his future.

[Chan790]

46. What is the punishment where you are...

for involuntary homicide resulting from negligence or criminal indifference?

(There is a presumption of culpability; your example does not accurately correlate the circumstance of the shooting. He left the gun unsecured...to equate that to your hypothetical, I'm going to assume the pool-access was unsecured and the children unsupervised.)

Here in MD, it's 2^nd-degree manslaughter and punishable by no more than 15 years and no less than 6 years prison, at sentencing, with mandatory parole-eligibility after 3 years. So...3-15 years.

[savalez]

59. Pools are not designed specifically to kill. n/t

[oneshooter]

60. Neither are automobiles, but they seem to do it on a regular basis.

[savalez]

61. If you don't know the difference between the three

then I can't help you.

[Squinch]

64. And you need a license, a registration and insurance for your car.

And if you kill someone with your car through reckless endangerment, you will likely go to jail.

[randome]

4. Unless we were in the court room, we don't know what went into this sentencing.

Would it have been a further punishment to the 4 year old to take his father away, possibly the only person -provided he felt remorse- who could help him recover from the trauma of having killed his brother?

[hr]
[font color="blue"][center]I'm always right. When I'm wrong I admit it.
So then I'm right about being wrong.[/center][/font]
[hr]

[dflprincess]

49. I believe the sentencing guidelines said 4 years in prison

but the local news said that the judge felt that, given his remorse, probabtion made more sense. Also, as part of his community service, he will be reaching out to the Hmong community and working with them to raise more awareness about gun safety.

I doubt the County Attorney is happy about this, at least at the beginning of the case, he appeared to be out to make an example of the guy.

[Buzz Clik]

5. He lost his son.

[Robb]

10. His son lost everything.

[Buzz Clik]

12. So what would be appropriate?

[Squinch]

23. He didn't "lose" his son. He placed his son in a deadly situation, and the son died.

As is to be expected, when one places a toddler in a deadly situation.

[Buzz Clik]

24. So what should be his punishment?

[Squinch]

26. As I posted below: what are the punishments for other crimes in which parents

put their children in situations that any sane person would understand to be deadly? What is the punishment for parents who don't feed their children? Parents who give their children poison due to Munchausen by Proxy syndrome? Parents who leave their children in cars in the sun resulting in the childrens' deaths?

They get jail time. Because they are considered to have killed their kids. So did this guy.

Leaving a loaded gun under your pillow around a 4 year old is at least as likely to end in death as any of these acts.

[Captain Stern]

31. The 'leaving children in hot cars' might not be that great an example.

Amazingly, not only do a lot of these cases not result in jail time.....they don't even result in charges being filed as long as it was an honest mistake.

http://www.ggweather.com/heat/ap_sentencing.htm

[Squinch]

34. The article you linked actually SUPPORTS the claim that parents are often charged and convicted for

the deaths of their children when they leave them in a hot car.

I think we can say that the father intentionally left the gun under the pillow, so here are two cases from your article in which the parents intentionally left the child in the car:

Not surprisingly, the harshest treatment is reserved for those who intentionally left their children. According to the AP's analysis, those people are nearly twice as likely to serve time than people who simply forgot the child. And on average, they received sentences that were 5 1/2 years longer.

In 2004, Tara Maynor was sentenced to 12 1/2 to 60 years in prison on two counts of second-degree murder after leaving her two children in a car for four hours outside a suburban Detroit beauty parlor while she got a massage and hairdo. She told police she was "too stupid to know they would die."

Just last month, Karla Edwards pleaded guilty in Aiken, S.C., to homicide by child abuse for leaving her 15-month-old son, Zachary Frison, in a car for nine hours in April 2006 while she worked at a home-improvement store. When Edwards was unable - or unwilling - to explain her actions, the judge sentenced her to 20 years.

And in general cases:

-Mothers are treated much more harshly than fathers. While mothers and fathers are charged and convicted at about the same rates, moms are 26 percent more likely to do time. And their median sentence is two years longer than the terms received by dads.

-Day care workers and other paid baby sitters are more likely than parents to be charged and convicted. But they are jailed less frequently than parents, and for less than half the time.

-Charges are filed in half of all cases - even when a child was left unintentionally

[Captain Stern]

38. I suppose they are "often" charged and convicted...

....if "often" means that only about half of them are even charged. Of those charged, about 80% are convicted or plea guilty. About half of those that are convicted or plea guilty receive any jail time.

Basically, four out of five people that cause an infant's death by leaving it in a hot car are sentenced to no jail time.

[demwing]

76. He didn't lose his son like you might lose your wallet or keys

He lost his son like a stack of chips at a Roulette Wheel. He gambled his son's life, and lost.

[Squinch]

77. Exactly.

[Heidi]

57. That's clearly a risk he was willing to take. (nt)

[Lizzie Poppet]

6. "Well, that should deter people from leaving weapons unsecured."

If the potential for having your kid killed because you're too stupid and/or lazy to properly secure a deadly weapon isn't deterrent enough, I can't imagine any penalty the legal system might potentially hand out would be any more effective.

[kestrel91316]

11. So sez one of our resident libertarians.....................

I'm sure you think ALL laws are silly, useless, and unwarranted.

[Lizzie Poppet]

14. Libertarian? You can't imagine how wrong you are.

I'm a socialist, Sparky...probably far, far more leftist than you are. Protip: some of us own guns and have every intention of ensuring that our legal right to do so remains. Deal with it.

[Eleanors38]

15. What should be the punisment? nt

[Politicalboi]

7. A little slap on the wrist

10 years of jail time should be the MINIMUM for idiots like this.

[geek tragedy]

8. Well, having a child die should be a deterrent, but obviously wasn't.

The issue really isn't deterrence, it's gobsmackingly stupid gun owners.

[Tikki]

37. We are all law abiding parents until we leave a loaded gun, with the safety off, where a....

child can get it and shoot anyone nearby.
I believe it is a criminal behavior and until real jail time is imposed it will be time-off for being really sad.



Tikki

[Eleanors38]

13. What do you want to do to the father? Should the family be broken up?

Tell us what you desire in order to satisfy your sense if justice.

[Squinch]

16. The family has already been broken up by the father's negligence. If he were someone who killed

his child through extreme neglect, we would have no problem with the concept of jailing him for the safety of the remaining children.

Well, guess what? He killed his son by an act of extreme child neglect.

Not securing your gun resulting in the death of your child should get jail time.

[Eleanors38]

19. Jail time: How much?

[Squinch]

21. How much jail time do parents get when their children die because they don't feed them, or

induce illness in them, or feed them poison, or put them in other situations that are likely to be deadly?

That much jail time.

[Eleanors38]

33. 5 - 10 years like Frylock?

[Squinch]

36. Here are some sentences that have been handed to parents who left their children in hot cars

and the children subsequently died:

Not surprisingly, the harshest treatment is reserved for those who intentionally left their children. According to the AP's analysis, those people are nearly twice as likely to serve time than people who simply forgot the child. And on average, they received sentences that were 5 1/2 years longer.

In 2004, Tara Maynor was sentenced to 12 1/2 to 60 years in prison on two counts of second-degree murder after leaving her two children in a car for four hours outside a suburban Detroit beauty parlor while she got a massage and hairdo. She told police she was "too stupid to know they would die."

Just last month, Karla Edwards pleaded guilty in Aiken, S.C., to homicide by child abuse for leaving her 15-month-old son, Zachary Frison, in a car for nine hours in April 2006 while she worked at a home-improvement store. When Edwards was unable - or unwilling - to explain her actions, the judge sentenced her to 20 years.


That's from the article Captain Stern linked above.

We find them to be egregiously irresponsible. But when a gun is involved it's just not that big a deal. Why is it different?

[Eleanors38]

42. I'm not adverse to jail time, but wielding heavy sentences

except for the most hideous pre-meditated crimes is the one-trick pony conservatives advocate -- and promote with the massive prison system -- for "solving" criminality and social problems. Do we as progressives want to take up a sentencing arms race with conservative policy?

In the pantheon of childhood deaths due to parental/caretaker neglect, death by firearm ranks well down the list of causes; certainly lower than electrocution, drowning, falls and other causes. If we agree to 5 yr. sentences for negligent gun storage, and in the name of equitable punishment spread out those sentences to the other causes of death, progressives will spark our own prison-building boom.

[Squinch]

43. Nice dodge, but this isn't about the conservative prison system. This is about responsibility

for the deadly ramifications of a hobby.

And no, I don't think there will be a prison boom caused by parents killing children. In the absence of guns, it isn't that numerous an occurrence. And when it does occur, that's exactly the type of things that people should go to jail for.

The conservative prison boom comes from jailing people for things like marijuana possession. That's not in the same league in terms of either severity or number as parents killing children.

Further, many of the situations you name in your list of ways children die include straight, unavoidable, regrettable accidents. The storage of a loaded gun under a pillow in the home of a 4 year old does not fall into that category.

[Eleanors38]

45. "parents killing children." You really think he desired & planned that?

You have assigned a motive and premeditation where there is no evidence. Is this parent's actions any more malevolent than a parent who doesn't plug wall outlets? Or leaves a child in the bath unattended? Or forgets he left a kid in a locked, windows-up car in July? Either you think the method of death (gun) is somehow worse, and thereby worthy of more prison time, or you wish to sentence all neglectful parents the same, hence an alignment with conservative approaches to crime: More prisons to house neglectful parents whose kids died on their watch.

Which is it?

[Squinch]

47. Saying he is responsible for killing his child says nothing about motive or premeditation

or malevolence. It simply says that he is responsible for the killing of his child.

Which he is.

Leaving a loaded gun under the pillow in the home of a 4 year old is more akin to leaving a live hand grenade in the toy box than it is to leaving a child unattended for a moment. A child must bathe, a home must have electricity. There is no reason a home with a 4 year old needs a loaded gun in a place that is readily accessible to the 4 year old.

There are grades of negligence. Leaving a loaded gun in a location that is readily accessible to a toddler requires a unlimited willingness to recklessly endanger the life of that child. You have to buy the gun. You have to load the gun. You have to decide not to secure the gun. Then you have to decide, "Fuck it. Not only am I not going to secure it, I'm not even going to put it out of reach of all the toddlers in the house." That's a whole lot of craven disregard for the well being of your family. Yes, the parent who makes that string of destructive, deadly decisions does seem to me to be a whole lot more culpable than the one who leaves his child unattended for a tragic moment.

I have already said that I think it's perfectly appropriate to jail parents who bake their children to death in hot cars.

And again, your argument that we will have to build lots of prisons to house the parents who kill their children is kind of silly.

[Eleanors38]

50. So, some ways of dying by neglect are more equal than others?

Very strained attempt at logic. It all involves gradations of neglect: "I put a plug in an outlet, but removed it to vacuum," "The fence around the pool was supposed to be fixed, but the repairman canceled...", "I locked the box, but the latch must have been bent."

Yeah. Try to work that out in court so you can prove a gun was worse than drowning. No, your very trans-parent desire is to punish more when a gun is involved. Fortunately, the average judge is not trying to score political points when a child dies due to neglect. They take it case-by-case, not gun-by-gun.

[Squinch]

58. What a ridiculous argument. Of course it involves gradations of neglect. Because gradations exist.

Letting your kid go out without a coat is different from not feeding your child. Baking your child to death in a hot car is different from allowing him to eat too much processed food. Turning away for a moment while your child is in the bath is different from leaving a loaded gun where he plays.

What is the difficulty here with understanding that there are gradations?

And it is worked out all the time in court. If I am drunk and hit you with a car, I'll likely get jail time. If I hit you with a car because I have skid on the ice, I likely won't. Gradations.

I simply refuse to believe that you are not intelligent enough to deal with the fact that some behaviors are worse than others.

And as far as punishing where guns are involved? I used the example before of leaving a live grenade in a child's toy box. I would be just as willing for that parent to go to jail. Likewise a bowlful of poison pellets left at the child's place at the table. Likewise deadly behaviors of Munchausen by Proxy parents. The thing I am objecting to here is the irresponsibility of the almost certainly deadly behavior. I don't care what weapon you use. When you put your child in almost certainly deadly danger, knowingly and negligently, you should go to jail.

Personally I don't give a rat's ass whether you have a gun. I do care that innocent people aren't placed in positions of certainly deadly danger from your gun. The problem with gun nuts is that they insist they are all responsible, yet they refuse to take the responsibilities to ensure that the rest of us don't die from their hobbies. One way to take that responsibility is to admit that when someone is so jackass crazy stupid with his gun as this guy was, and has knowingly put his whole family in danger but chooses not to take any precautions to keep his family members alive, he deserves jail time.

[frylock]

29. 5-10

happy?

[Robb]

20. By which post, you win the thread.

The father did not take actions appropriate to protect the life of one child, who clearly he did not value enough to have done so.

Given the lack of evidence to the contrary, there's nothing to suggest he values the other child enough to take appropriate actions to protect him, either.

Yet somehow he gets a pass. Because the sacred Gun was involved?

[Squinch]

39. When a gun isn't involved and a parent's intentional actions kill a child, we almost never

have the response, "Oh, well, they've learned their lesson."

I think there are a lot of people out there who are thinking "there but for the grace of God go I. This is a terrible accident, and it could happen to anyone."

Those who are thinking this are absolutely oblivious to the fact that thinking that thought proves they are not responsible gun owners. Because this could NOT happen to anyone. This could only happen to someone who is completely irresponsible, who doesn't understand the ramifications of owning a gun, and who should never have been allowed near gun ownership.

And all the enabling responses here are part of the attitude that guarantees that those who still don't understand the need to secure their guns will never change, and this situation will be replayed over and over and over.

[CreekDog]

27. he shouldn't be allowed to own guns, ever again

or at least as long as he has children in the house.

[Squinch]

30. If he had left his child in a car on a hot

day, and the child died, he would lose custody of all his other kids. At the very, very least. It is quite possible he would be brought up on charges.

Leaving your gun under your pillow where your 4 year old can get it is at least as deadly as leaving a child in a hot car.

Losing the right to practice your hobby by not having a gun after you have caused the death of your child is not really sufficient. It's the same as saying that father who left his child to die in a hot car isn't allowed to go fishing any more. Not appropriate.

[Eleanors38]

44. Actually, your proposal is more reasonable than the "lock 'em up for years"

suggestions posted here. If ALL childhood deaths due to parental neglect resulted in 5 - 10 yr. Jail terms, some conservative prison-pushers would blush.

The chief argument conservatives use for stiff sentences is deterrence. We know how that works.

I support long terms for severe violent crimes in order to keep hard criminals restrained from committing crimes again. Neglectful parents don't fit that mold, IMO.

[davidpdx]

53. If the conviction was a felony that probably will bar him from owning one

I'm guessing it must be. That was terrible news about Crabtree getting hurt.

[BainsBane]

73. We certainly wouldn't want to discourage people from leaving

guns around now would we? Failing to leave loaded guns in the reach of children clearly violates the Second Amendment. The brave and valiant fight against gun safes marches on.

[Eleanors38]

74. That fight is in your imagination, or you are...

how do I say this without getting alerted?... you are engaging in -- ah -- an intentional fabrication.

Yeah. Intentional fabrication.

Why don't you come up and see my... Gun safe? (paraphrasing a well-known female actor).

[BainsBane]

78. Here for everyone's benefit

http://election.democraticunderground.com/10022939566

Now, one who think a normal human being would say, that's horrific. The NRA is fucked up on that issue. But not you.

http://election.democraticunderground.com/10022939566#post5

[BainsBane]

79. And let's not forget this choice note

I don't know where you came up with that "right," but childhood deaths-by-guns are declining...

and have been doing so for several years now; in fact they are declining faster than (and are below) the rates of several other causes of childhood deaths. People who own guns are taking action on safety measures, or we wouldn't have these declines, given the increase in the number of firearms in circulation.

It has been suggested that electronic recognition lock boxes might be a good measure. I a. m open to this. But there should in NO WAY be laws which merely throw spike-strips in front of citizens who are exercising their right of self-defense. That's someone else's agenda

In the same thread
http://election.democraticunderground.com/10022939566

One has to wonder what it is they are defending that you consider more important than the lives of the gunowner's children. I suppose that must be property.

Naturally you never responded to my question about how many children need to die before it matters.

[GeorgeGist]

17. I think losing a child would deter most folks.

But haters gotta hate.

[Squinch]

25. I think someone who leaves an unsecured gun around a 4-year-old has placed

that 4-year-old in a situation that is likely to become deadly. And it did become deadly.

The very likely prospect of losing his child did not deter him. At the very least, he should not be allowed to be around his children without supervision.

Nothing to do with hate.

[Xithras]

18. It's an appropriate sentence.

America has become an overly punitive society. We get off on seeing the "bad guy" suffer.

The guy will spend the next decade on probation, being randomly searched, prohibited from holding most decent jobs, banned from owning anything more lethal than a butter knife, and having his home subject to inspection by law enforcement at any time, without warning or a warrant. He can't even hop in his car and drive to the next county without calling to ask permission first. He has already spent a month in prison, and will spend another month being forced to perform manual labor for the state. Oh, and he has to live with the fact that his kid is now dead because of his own stupidity.

No amount of punishment is going to bring the kid back, and there was no malice involved that needs to be "incarcerated out of him". The only thing sentencing accomplishes, at this point, is to deter him from ever doing anything similar and to set an example for others. This sentence does that. Sentencing him to a decade in prison isn't going to accomplish anything that this sentence doesn't.

[RC]

32. Finality, a voice of sanity.

I'm surprised someone hasn't suggested the death penalty yet.
If anyone would stop to think about it, the father DID receive a rather harsh penalty. Just not in prison. Contrary to what too many here think, the father did not basically walk with a light sentence.

[jberryhill]

52. I am appalled at how many don't get that

It makes me wonder what their relationship with their parents was like.

[HappyMe]

41. Thank you.

People screaming for jail time have not given a thought to the remaining son at home. So this guy goes to jail and then the kid has lost his brother and his dad, and makes the SO/wife into as single mom.

[Logical]

56. I think house arrest on weekends would add a little. n-t

[Squinch]

75. I have to say, I think malice is intrinsic in the act of leaving a loaded gun unsecured

where your child plays. There are a lot of active decisions to be irresponsible and to disregard your child's safety in that act.

Though no punishment is going to bring that child back, there is another child in the house, the child who now has to live for the rest of his life with the fact that he shot his sibling to death. The father should not have unsupervised access to that child. He should not be in a position to further damage that child.

And I know that most will say, "Oh, he learned his lesson." But what if he didn't?

[JI7]

28. i don't think it would deter people from leaving weapons around because they never think it would

happen to them. it's always the others who are the problem.

but either case one should be punished and this guy isn't really getting anything for what resulted in a kid dying.

[Bigmack]

48. Any of you old enough to remember...

... the racist statement "Those Asians don't value human life like we do."

Maybe we should model our value of life on those Asians.

[Union Scribe]

51. If someone isn't deterred by the idea of their child dying

senselessly, and is careless enough to keep a loaded gun under a pillow, I'm not sure what else would truly act as a deterrent for such a person.

[davidpdx]

54. It is a tragedy

I totally agree the fact that he didn't have his weapon properly secured lead to the shooting.

On the sentencing I'm torn. The loss of a child is terrible and is not something I could begin to understand.

One of my wife's (now ex-wife) nieces died when she was 16 of a drug overdose. Watching her mom (my then wife's sister) suffer was difficult. I've often told some stories about her family, the other of which is her brother who had many DUIs wrapped his car around a telephone poll one night killing his girlfriend. Last I heard he was doing 15 years in prison.

back on topic...

It's hard for me to wish prison on him. The fact that he left his weapon unsecured was foolish, no question there. I would guess he will bear an incredible amount of guilt for the rest of his life which will weigh down on him. The birthdays, Christmas, the day he would have graduated from high school all those are lost. Ten years of probation is a long time, but it gives him a chance to straighten out his life. I can only hope maybe he will become an advocate for gun safety and spread the message about how his careless behavior was the cause for his son's death.

[Squinch]

63. People who kill family members through reckless endangerment often regret it and

often go through a great deal of grief and guilt. And we don't think twice about the appropriateness of putting them in jail. It seems, though, that if the victim is a child and the means is a gun, we give them a pass.

Many here are hoping like you that he will see the error of his ways and not be so cravenly careless about the survival of his children in the future.

What if he doesn't? There's another child in that house.

[davidpdx]

65. Honestly I don't have an solid answer on that one

Being on probation for 10 years means he will be closely supervised. I'm not sure what his terms of probation are. My understanding is there are general rules and then specific rules can be made depending on the case. That would have been up to the judge.

By no means is it giving him a pass. Putting him in prison makes him a child killer (essentially, although not in the typical sense like a person that preys on them) which means he'd probably be physically harmed. It makes me wonder if that is what we really want in such a situation.

I think what he did was wrong, I'm just not so sure the lock'em up and throw away the key option is the answer.

[Squinch]

66. I don't think anyone is saying lock him up and throw away the key. I am surprised, though,

that reckless endangerment when a gun and one's child are involved doesn't seem to be perceived to be as important as when an adult is at the receiving end of reckless endangerment, or when a different weapon is used. I don't see that it should be treated any differently, and I am absolutely stymied about why it wouldn't be.

I think consistency in the response to reckless endangerment is what we should be doing here.

[davidpdx]

67. The question then is what would be the middle ground

between his current sentence and the worst case scenario I laid out? I don't see many possibilities.

I agree there should be consistency, but also remember different states have different laws. What one person in California would be charged and sentenced with maybe quite different in another state.

[Squinch]

69. He was, according to the article, convicted of second degree manslaughter

and child endangerment. In California, child endangerment alone carries a sentence of up to 6 years. This sentence that he was given does not fit the crimes for which he was convicted.

If he was drunk and hit a child with his car and killed the child, and was convicted of these same charges, and given probation, I'd venture to say there would be outrage that he was getting off too easy.

[davidpdx]

72. I didn't read the article before as I usually only glance at was posted by the OP

2nd murder and child endangerment are both felonies I believe. The video said the maximum sentence could have been 4 years.

[Eleanors38]

62. Cokemachine, the reason it's so boring over there,

is because they're all over here!

[BainsBane]

68. I can see how upset you are by this child's death

[BainsBane]

71. That is exactly what you did in this thread

completely distasteful and utterly predicable.

Gun control is ALL about saving children's lives, as well as the lives of adults. That is the only reason any of us fight for it. You apparently are unable to imagine anyone caring about other human beings. Like everything else, this is all about you. The death of a murder victim isn't worth commenting on. The real victims are gun zealots who have to face the horror of seeing the consequences of the gun policy they fight for every day. That and nurturing the persecution complex that gun zealots bask in. Poor you. The deaths of 38,000 Americans every year pales in comparison to your being exposed to free speech.