A West Palm Beach mom has been slapped with charges after a teacher found a gun inside her toddler's lunchbox at a local daycare, police said. The shocking discovery was made at Riviera Beach's Jackson’s Daycare Center when an educator opened the two-year-old’s lunch container to find a 9mm Glock 43 handgun nestled among the child's meal, as reported by CBS12.
The mother, identified as 39-year-old Shanae Davis, confessed to the Riviera Beach Police that she typically stashes the gun in her vehicle's glove compartment but had been bringing it indoors due to a spate of break-ins at her apartment complex and she put it in the lunchbox because, without a purse, the lunchbox was where she put it, forgetting to remove it which led to the incident, this according to police documents obtained by CBS12. The revelation caused immediate alarm at the daycare, where staff members took action to ensure the safety of the children and promptly contacted authorities, an incident that struck a chord with parents who trust such institutions to be safe havens for their young.
Details from NBC Montana also corroborated the event, with reports confirming the firearm was discovered when the lunchbox was opened. Parents who send their kids to daycare were understandably rattled, with parent Stephenne Warembourg expressing to CBS12, "It's scary, I mean, you know, when I'm sending my kid to school thinking that he's going to be safe, I mean, are they? I don't know." Another parent, Kimberly Worth, stressed the importance of weapon safety saying, "Things like that are extremely preventable, You need a gun purse, and you need a plan with your gun. You have it in your gun purse. You walk in your home, it goes in a safe or a specific place, which is gun safe, just like you would make your child safe or make your pet safe."
Following the incident Davis, who picked up the child and the firearm from the daycare and was later detained by police, now faces charges of child neglect and permitting a minor to obtain a firearm to take it to school; she was released from custody Friday afternoon, CBS12 reported. The daycare, a place where children's laughter should echo, not the metallic click of a loaded weapon, and parents are left to grapple with the anxieties of what could happen when the sanctity of spaces meant for learning and growth are punctuated by the potential for tragedy.
