Warning: Article has detailed accounts of the shooting
Breanna Gayle Devall Runions, 25, was charged with first-degree murder and aggravated child abuse in the death of Evangaline Gunter.
The child’s parents, Adam and Josie Gunter, told ABC affiliate WATE that Evangaline had been in temporary custody at a home in Rockwood, which Runions shared with girlfriend Christina Daniels and another child, a 7-year-old girl.
Before the shooting, Evangaline and the older girl were being punished that morning by Runions for not waking up the women and for eating Daniels’ food without permission, according to the warrant and a statement from Russell Johnson, district attorney general for Tennessee’s 9th Judicial District. Runions struck both girls with a sandal before forcing them to stand in different corners of the women’s bedroom, authorities said the older girl told them.
After the shooting, the women drove Evangaline to a nearby Walmart location to meet an ambulance, Roane County Medical Examiner Dr. Thomas Boduch told the Roane County News, and the vehicle transported the girl to a hospital where she was pronounced dead. Boduch could not immediately be reached by HuffPost.
were being punished that morning by Runions for not waking up the women and for eating Daniels’ food without permission
Any time a young child is in trouble for eating someone’s food, it is a huge red flag.
Any time a child is responsible for an adult’s schedule, it is a huge red flag.
This article is about child abuse that lead to murder.
Tragic
The headline really fucking buried the lede. This is not a story about a firearms instructor accidentally shooting someone. This is a story about extreme child abuse.
What kind of legitimate firearm instructor would allow a 4 year old to hold a gun. This was always about Child Abuse.
Well, the difference would be “incompetent fire arm instructor” versus “person trying to cover up murdering a child”
That’s not what happened.
Runions told police that she had taken a 9 mm handgun out of its case, removed the magazine and called Evangaline over to “show her firearm safety.”
Runions pressed the barrel of the gun against the child’s chest and pulled the trigger, police said she told them.
The irony of calling this “firearm safety” is absurd. It’s being charged as first degree murder because nobody points a gun at someone’s chest and pulls the trigger unless they intend to kill.
In the south? Plenty.
Did you miss the part where it described the actual abuse? Like, you don’t need to do much guessing to find out they were being abused.
Runions struck both girls with a sandal before forcing them to stand in different corners of the women’s bedroom
Why was she
in temporary custody at a home in Rockwood
what does that even mean?? It makes it sound like she was being held there without consent, but she’s a child and no kidnapping is mentioned, so who put here there? What relation was the killer to the child? Where were her parents?
The full article mentions the child had been placed there by a “court decision” so it sounds like the parents may have temporarily lost custody.
I appreciate the info, thanks.
That raises so many other questions though, none will help make this case any less horrible, but it just feels like so many people failed this poor child in her short life (potentially her parents, but also whoever placed her in this situation and failed to ensure her safety), but probably only one will pay…
If you want a deeper look into just how child protection systems can fail so egregiously, have a watch of The Trials of Gabriel Fernandez. I work in child protection myself and it was eye-opening.
The whole article describes a strange situation. The “adults” where mad at the kids for not waking them and eating their food. Like what is even going on over here?
Child Abuse. Child abuse is going on over there.
Eh… It could simply be that they were keeping her for the week while the parents weren’t available or something, no need to panic…
A child was murdered and I’m asking for clarification.
Who the fuck is panicking? Why even respond that way, how is it helpful?Do I really need to quote your reply I was replying to or you’re able to scroll up a bit?
Lol, the post is literally just asking questions, questions which I know many here want to be answered. No indication of panicking was ever in there.
“makes it sound like she was being held without her consent”
That’s the first thing you think about when seeing “temporary custody”? Having custody of someone means you’re the person who has the responsibility of taking care of them. OP even used the word kidnapping in their post.
Heck, a babysitter has temporary custody of the kids she’s taking care of, why would OP not think about that first?
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No matter how broke we were my mom always said that if I was hungry I should eat. She firmly believed nobody could be wrong for eating something if they were hungry and I carry that with me today.
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Moral of the story: Don’t have children just to have them.
They were fostering the children, I thought. But yes.
Runions pressed the barrel of the gun against the child’s chest and pulled the trigger, police said she told them.
Daniels told police that she saw Runions take out the gun, remove its magazine and put it to Evangaline’s chest, but she turned away and didn’t see her pull the trigger, according to the warrant.
This was a murder.
yeah it’s 100% just a murder. probably she thinks by saying it’s an “accident” she can either skate or get a manslaughter conviction instead of murder.
people do forget about the chambered round all the time.
But. I ain’t holding my breath, either.
And this is why the rule is every time you pick up/are handed a gun you check the chamber. Even if you just watched your buddy do it. Also, firearm safety for a four year old is “Stop, don’t touch, tell an adult.”
people do forget about the chambered round all the time.
all the time?? And y’all still are having debates on whether it might be time to maybe start looking at how you may act on the issue? America seems fucking crazy from the outside looking in…
They do. Which is why you never point a gun at someone, let alone pull the trigger. It’s an entirely implausible excuse because what she did has nothing to do with teaching gun safety.
It may or may not have been an acccident but it happened because she was bullying the child. Whether proving that level of intent is enough to prove murder (in the US), I don’t know. But at the very least it is an extremely serious form of manslaughter so the difference is probably negligible in terms of conviction and sentencing (unless they can prove that it was an entirely deliberate and intentional murder).
Yes, what the hell kind of gun safety lesson was that? Here is exactly what NOT to ever do.
“Here kid, don’t do exactly this or you’ll Alec Baldwin someone.”
Tries to “teach gun safety” by breaking all 4 major gun safety rules at once
Yeah, not buying her story lol.
You could say her gun safety knowledge was a little bit…
…Rusty…
Just another reason why not every idiot and his uncle should be allowed to own a firearm.
I mean, even without the firearm this was going to go south. You did read this, right? The kids were struck with sandals because they did not wake a fully grown adult up and “ate their food without permission”.
It does sound like an abusive situation that the kids needed to be removed from.
However, it wasn’t the sandal that killed the child.
Well if they beat their children, authorities would have been notified and they would have been taken away.
Now, that chance has passed.
Plenty of people have come up with ways to beat tveir kids without leaving bruises. Like using sandals, for example.
I survived the chancla as a kid. Guns though…
temporary custody
Why is it next to impossible for people to get approved to adopt, but any asshole can become a foster parent? I think you need more in-depth screenings to adopt from pet rescues. If the US is going to force pregnancy on people, then they really need to get a handle on the foster system. Because it’s always about “protecting the children,” right?
Went through the foster care/guardianship in Oregon for us. These kinda stories make me Soo mad. I have a lot of First hand experience with the Oregon foster system… I am adopted myself. I Was in 97 to a single woman in her late 50s (I loved my mom, make no mistake she was great and may she RIP) but it was super easy for her to adopt me… like really easy…
THAT SAID… My husband and I also had to get custody of my nephew from my sister. It was a terrible experience and I almost warn people who are interested in being a foster because of our experience…
My husband and I went through hell and back in Oregon to be become foster parents just so we could take our nephew out of foster care. As we went through the process, We got accused of only wanting him for money by a foster care certifier. (mind you the amount they pay is pennies a month for a kid) God that woman was outrageous and we had to complain to my nephews case worker, that her co-worker was sabotaging our nephews chance at permanent placement and almost backed out because she made us look so bad for asking questions and curious about how to afford this child. Very relevant question to ask, wouldn’t you say? (This foster certifier was very Catholic made it very know to me and my husband. She got upset with us when we told her we are not religious and had to tell us about all the Catholic churches and schools he should be in… and at the time, we were also not married. (Gasp I know!!)
So she put in her report, that she was suspicious of us and our reasons for being interested in this child for suspicious reasons. This was my nephew!! I was there when he was born and everyday since till he went to foster care. My mom died.in 2020 and my sister couldn’t parent without her support… I wanted him home… it was that simple!! But this worker made It a fucking nightmare and I was sooooo angry.
Thanks to his case worker appealing for us and showing the judge the errors the certifier was claiming we finally got the foster parent certification and are now full fledged guardians of him and have yearly check ins… it was a headache and almost impossible with how long it took…
So when I see stories like this and someone who got be a foster who clearly shouldn’t be, INFURIATINES ME!!! we had to work so hard and show everything (not that it was a problem for us, we expected it) but to see those who didn’t get held to the same standards and a kid gets hurt through negligence pisses me off!!
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I get the feeling that they might be better off with the lesbians tbh. Gay people adopting or being foster parents isn’t a social politically woke experiment. They’re just people doing it for their own reasons like any other couples. I strongly suspect there’s more to them not giving those kids to you and the fact that you had to point out the color of their skin and that they were gay speaks volumes.
He mentioned neglect. He could be lying. If it’s true then those people were not fit to take care of them.
They’ll just put the group homes on the coal mine’s property. Boom, two birds with one stone. Like the ol “company store” days almost.
For people who, like me, saw the gap between “teaching firearm safety” and first degree murder, the method outlined in the article for teaching firearm safety seemed to involve putting the barrel of the gun to the child’s chest and pulling the trigger. The witness, the other child living in the home, says that the killer did pull the magazine before the ‘safety lesson’ though. Technically this might make premeditation difficult to prove and could hinder a first degree murder conviction but I also think that a jury will figure out some way to make this monster go away forever regardless of what the letter of the law says.
I mean, IANAL but I think it’s pretty easy to argue that anyone with the bare minimum knowledge of firearms and intent to teach safety would know that:
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You presume the gun is always loaded.
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You check the chamber, even after pulling the mag. And then still treat the gun as loaded.
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You don’t start the lesson by putting the barrel of the gun to anyone’s chest and pulling the trigger. Because you don’t do that when treating a gun as if its loaded.
With those three points, which again, I would argue constitutes the bare minimum to anyone attempting to teach firearm safety, a skilled prosecutor could argue there was some sort of intent. She would have known those things, yet didn’t do those things, and so behaved in a way that indicates other intent. Easier to argue manslaughter, of course, but it’s just so egregious I can see why they’d push for 1st degree.
The standard for first degree murder is higher than the mens rea required for most crime. It’s not just an intent to kill, it’s a premeditated plan to kill.
I think they pushed for first degree because most people see murdering a child as the most bad murder you can do and first degree murder as the most bad murder charge you can convict someone of. To do any less would invite political attacks for being “soft on crime” but I think it’s a lot to try to argue that this person must have intended to kill this child because no one could possibly be that stupid. Any time I’ve ever thought “no one could possibly be that stupid and cruel” I’ve been unpleasantly surprised.
Yeah, honestly I think first degree might be a mistake and she may go free for it. If they have other evidence, fine. It just seems like a stupid person who maybe has anger and self control issues. They probably shouldn’t have access to a firearm in the first place though with good mental health evaluations. This girl didn’t need to die.
Doesn’t matter to me if you’re anal but what did that have to do with anything?
I do, but that’s neither here nor there unless you want to buy me a drink first
What I don’t is have a license to practice law anywhere in the English-speaking world.
IANAL stands for “I am not a lawyer”
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This is reason #9,278 why conservatives should not be allowed near children.
And reason #53759742269743 why guns should be extremely restricted.
Wtf does this article have to do with conservatives? Liberals and swing voters own guns too, you know.
The difference is most liberals don’t want dumb people to have guns. This person might be a liberal, but if other liberals had their way, the girl would still be alive.
While I don’t disagree with you on the gun issue. This particular instance just looks like intended murder. I have a feeling this child would have been killed regardless of the gun. You don’t just accidentally put a gun to a child’s chest and shoot.
Perhaps liberals would be less likely to show off firearms, much less teach how to use them, to a four years old.
Liberals have guns, but liberals aren’t stupid enough to point a gun at a child. It’s extremely obvious to everyone except conservatives that this woman is a conservative.
Cause there are no stupid liberals…
You really need to
touch grassmeet a few people. Stupidity spans both sides and all political spectrums.While you’re technically right why don’t we all go look up the lowest iq states in the USA and see how they consistently vote,shall we?
You fail to realise that this isn’t a matter of liberals vs. conservatives, it’s the fact that guns themselves are stupid and legislation rewarding that is archaic and dangerous in the U.S.
This is the kind of lazy comment I would expect to see here. It makes me want to go back to Reddit. What are you, 14?
And this is coming from a liberal
Yes, no liberal has ever murdered a child.
The fact alone that this woman is gay goes against your “muh conservative” argument, considering the fact that LGBT is not a conservative concept in the slightest.
It’s not stupid when you do something intentionally. You say “liberals aren’t stupid enough to point a gun at a child” like this was an accident. She literally pressed the gun up against the child’s chest after hitting them with fucking sandals, due to the children failing to wake up fully grown adults and the 4 year old “eating food without permission”.
Motherfucker not every damn thing in the news is about politics, this has nothing to do with politics and you have no idea what her political alignment is whatsoever.
Strange, because there are gay conservative groups.
They recently said the GOP convention shouldn’t be held in Texas because of the anti-gay laws.
Every gun owner thinks they’re a responsible gun owner.
Can’t argue, she is responsible for this.
😅
Kind of like every dog owner. Except that most dogs have redeeming value.
Very upsetting story. This young girl was failed by every adult in her life.
There is a serious issue with child abuse here.
But, if you can correctly guess the country where this occurred before reading the locale in the article, then it’s a telling point about how famous the idiots+guns connection is in exactly one affluent country while still being a tangent.
I’m guessing Texas?
I’m unfortunately very familiar with this town. It’s an industrial wasteland with no real job market and drugs are rampant.
This story is unfortunately not at all surprising.
Yeah, we’re all aware. Thanks for your service it means so much on every single post like this.
You wanna teach firearm safety to a four year old, keep your guns safely locked up and practice using a hose pipe. If that murderer beams you with the hose, don’t let them have your gloc because they gunna Bury you.
Do not begrudge getting older…so few get the opportunity.
4 year old wiped off this world because a 25 year old woman shot her in an attempt to intimidate and scare her. there was no firearms safety class being taught; if my mother wanted to “show me something” it was always to rub my nose in the proverbial piss of some mistake i had made in her eyes. That is what i see here for this “gun class”
Everyone is a responsible gun owner until they aren’t.
“this never happened before!”
They’ll take away guns for women before they’ll restrict access to the main school shooter demographic.
And then someone is dead.
The 7-year-old girl told authorities that she saw Runions shoot Evangaline and said the bullet struck a glass bottle, sending shards her way, according to the warrant.
It’s even crueler for the child that witnessed the murder. At least the girl who was killed doesn’t have to continue to suffer. The 7-year-old who had to see it is old enough to remember that trauma for fucking forever. She’s going to need so much therapy to overcome this incident and our system won’t provide it for free.
Fuck anyone who brings out a gun around children.
This was a murder, plain and simple. She put a gun up to the girl’s chest and pulled the trigger.
Was gonna come in here to say “The first rule of gun safety is your gun is always loaded, even if you cleared it and the safety is on, so barrels don’t get pointed at anything you don’t want to die”.
This still applies here, but the situation had nothing to do with teaching a kid. Now that kid is dead. So fucked…
WTF
That is like teaching fire safety by pouring gasoline on someone and waving a lit match.
