Prosecutor: Mom, boyfriend should be held accountable for child shooting

The incident has hit the community hard, and Lindquist said he’s sure there is no one more broken up over the death of Julio than his mother. (AP Photo/File)

Nothing is more sad than the death of a child, remarks
Pierce County Prosecutor Mark Lindquist. He filed
manslaughter charges against a mother and her boyfriend
whose 3-year-old accidentally shot himself with a gun left
unattended in the car.

The couple pulled into the gas station near the Tacoma
Mall just after midnight on March 14. Before going into
the station, Eric Vita, 23, placed his loaded 9mm handgun
with a laser sight under the passenger seat where he was
sitting. The boy, Julio, unbuckled his seatbelt, and made
his way to the front from the mini-van’s third row. His 8-
month-old sister was strapped into a car seat in the
second row.

Julio’s mom, Jahnisha McIntosh, 22, put the gun under the
seat so it would be more difficult for the boy to get at
before leaving the car to get a snack.

After a gunshot rang out from inside the van, the couple
found Julio with a wound to the head. He was rushed to the
hospital where he later died.

“What we really want is accountability,” Lindquist told 97.3 KIRO FM’s Dori Monson
Show. “Guns are inherently dangerous and the law
requires that guns be handled responsibly, especially
around children.”

The incident has hit the community hard, and Lindquist
said he’s sure there is no one more broken up over the
death of Julio than his mother.

But, he added, “When the death is a result of a criminal
negligence, as was the case here, there needs to be
accountability.”

There was no one fact by itself in this case, that led
Lindquist to charge the couple with Manslaughter in the
second degree, but there are now details that Lindquist
said factored into his decision.

Friends and family had told detectives that Vita showed
off the gun with a laser sight, which he had a permit for,
to people, including Julio. He even offered to let the boy
hold the gun before someone intervened.

“You can imagine how laser light was fascinating to a
child,” Lindquist said.

It’s one of three cases involving guns in the hand of
children that have grabbed the community’s attention in
recent weeks. Two weeks ago, the mother and boyfriend of a
9-year-old that brought a gun to his Bremerton elementary
school were arrested and charged.

Meanwhile, Snohomish County prosecutor Mark Roe is also
examining a case in which the child of a Marysville police
officer picked up a gun left unattended in a car and
fatally shot the 7-year-old sister. Four children, all
under the age of 7, were alone in the van at the time of
the shooting. The parents were out of the vehicle at the
time, but nearby.

Lindquist said that while the cases might appear similar,
just one detail can make a difference in how Roe, who has
yet to making a charging decision, would handle that case.

“A slight different in facts can make a huge difference in
a charging decision.”

McIntosh and Vita made their initial appearance on the second-degree manslaughter charges Wednesday afternoon in Pierce County Superior Court. They both pleaded not guilty.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.