GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — A woman and her fiancée are facing charges after their 7-year-old child brought a gun to Cesar E. Chavez Elementary School earlier this month.
Aubrey Wilson, 32, faces a misdemeanor child abuse charge, while her fiancée Chelsea Berkley, 29, faces a felon in possession of a firearm charge.
Authorities said Berkley is in custody at the Kent County Correctional Facility on unrelated charges.
Kent County Prosecutor Christopher Becker said if convicted, the child abuse charge carries a one-year maximum penalty and $1,000 fine, while the felon in possession of a firearm charge carries a five-year maximum penalty.
"We can't get into the details too much. But just really briefly, I can say that essentially what we have here is one individual who brought the gun into the home. And the other individual was the one who put the gun in a place accessible to the child and brought it to Cesar Chavez Elementary," Becker said.
The incident, which took place on May 3, was the third time a gun was brought to a Grand Rapids Public School (GRPS) this academic year.
An unloaded gun was confiscated from a 7-year-old student at the school after another student notified a staff member of the gun.
Just one week after the gun was found on the 7-year-old at Cesar E. Chavez Elementary School, an 8-year-old brought a loaded handgun to Stocking Elementary School.
"I have about 23 years of police experience, and I will say this is the first time and now the second time that I've ever encountered a child that small having a gun in school. It was new to me, and to see it twice in one week period was very alarming," Grand Rapids Police Chief Eric Winstrom said.
Winstrom said in a press conference after the incident that he expects charges to be brought against someone in the Stocking Elementary case as well.
The incident at Stocking Elementary School prompted a ban on backpacks for the remainder of the school year at all GRPS schools.
In addition to the backpack ban, GRPS passed a resolution for safe schools at a board meeting Monday night. The district says they will also be hiring consultants to do a school safety assessment.
In October 2022, a Burton Middle School student brought an unloaded handgun to school.
Then in January, security officers confiscated a loaded handgun from a student at Burton Middle School.
GRPS answers frequently asked questions on the ban on their website here.
►Make it easy to keep up to date with more stories like this. Download the 13 ON YOUR SIDE app now.
Have a news tip? Email news@13onyourside.com, visit our Facebook page or Twitter. Subscribe to our YouTube channel.