Man pleads guilty to federal charges in Lansing death of 2-year-old

Rachel Van Gilder and Daylyn Huff

2 hours ago

LANSING, Michigan (WOOD/WLNS) — A man has pleaded guilty to a firearms violation charge filed after a 2-year-old boy accidentally shot himself in Lansing last year.

Avis Coward, 44, of Lansing, pleaded guilty to illegal possession of a firearm, the U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Michigan announced Wednesday.

“The senseless death of this two-year-old child was not inevitable,”
US Attorney Mark Totten said in a statement: “This incident is just one example of the cruel reality we must face: gun violence is now the leading cause of death for our youngest Americans, ages 0 to 19. We cannot bring this innocent child back, but these guilty pleas are an important step toward achieving some measure of justice and sending a message that careless gun owners will be held accountable.”

According to authorities, two-year-old King Muhammad grabbed a gun and shot himself in the head while sitting in an SUV with his mother. a Lansing gas station in October 2023. King died later in hospital.

Federal prosecutors say the gun was one of two weapons in the SUV and both belonged to Coward. They say Coward left King and his mother in the SUV to go to the gas station when the gun went off.

“Surveillance video showed … a bullet hole in the car window,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office said in a press release on Wednesday. “The mother exited the car and held her child, whose face was covered in blood from a gunshot wound. At that point, Coward’s gun fell from the car.”

A passerby took King into the gas station and tried to stop the bleeding.

In the meantime, prosecutors said, Coward put the gun back in the car, smashed the window with the bullet hole in it and then drove away. Police tracked him down and arrested him the same day.

Authorities say he called friends in prison and asked them to pick up the weapons because he did not want police to find them. Police found the weapons.

One of the friends, Gina Schieberl, pleaded guilty to tampering with evidence. She admitted to hiding the weapons and moving the SUV so police couldn’t find it. A week after the shooting, investigators found it burned out in a field.

King’s mother, 26-year-old Emma Huver of Lansing, pleaded guilty in April on a federal weapons charge. She will be sentenced on September 16. Schieberl is scheduled to be sentenced on October 21.