Toddler shoots pregnant mom while playing with father's loaded gun

INDIANAPOLIS — A toddler was playing with her father's handgun when she shot her pregnant mother Tuesday in a northwest Indiana parking lot, according to media reports.

A 3-year-old girl in the back seat of a vehicle when she shot her pregnant mother outside a Plato's Closet in Merrillville at 3:52 p.m., WMAQ-TV Chicago reported.

The girl's 1-year-old brother was also in the car. Her father was inside the store at the time, the station reported. Police took her father, identified by WMAQ as Menzo Brazien, into custody.

Brazien was held Wednesday in the Lake County Jail on a preliminary charge of child endangerment, the Lake County Sheriff's Department told The Indianapolis Star.

“A loaded weapon with children in the back seat: real careless act,” Merrilville police Chief Joe Petruch told WMAQ-TV. “I hope she survives the gunshot wound.”

The couple lives in Michigan City.

The mother was taken to Methodist Hospitals Southlake Campus in Merrillville, the Times of Northwest Indiana reported.

A Plato's Closet employee told the Times that she brought the children into the store while they waited for police to arrive.

"I walked outside and there was just blood falling everywhere," Hadassah Zirkle, told the newspaper.

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