{"id":248622,"date":"2026-07-21T17:08:26","date_gmt":"2026-07-21T17:08:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/248622\/"},"modified":"2026-07-21T17:08:26","modified_gmt":"2026-07-21T17:08:26","slug":"rankin-mom-facing-charges-after-4-year-old-son-shot-with-gun-left-in-purse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/248622\/","title":{"rendered":"Rankin mom facing charges after 4-year-old son shot with gun left in purse"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A mother is facing charges after police said that her <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/pittsburgh\/news\/child-shot-rankin-boulevard\/\" target=\"_blank\" data-invalid-url-rewritten-http=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">4-year-old son was shot<\/a> by a gun she left in her purse last month in Rankin Borough.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Allegheny County Police said that Ruth Hicks, 42, has been charged in connection with an incident last month when a child was discovered to have been shot after first responders initially were told the boy had been bitten by a dog.<\/p>\n<p>Police said that the child was taken to UPMC Children&#8217;s Hospital treatment of injuries to his wrist and pelvic region when medical personnel determined the injuries were from a gunshot wound, not a dog attack.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Through witness interviews, police said they were able to learn that Hicks had left a gun in her purse in the living room of her home along Rankin Boulevard and that two were children were left unsupervised.<\/p>\n<p>Police said that after the child was shot, Hicks instructed a third child, identified in court paperwork as her 17-year-old daughter, to hide the evidence of the shooting.<\/p>\n<p>The charges Hicks is facing include endangering the welfare of children, corruption of minors, and tampering with evidence, police said.<\/p>\n<p>According to <a href=\"https:\/\/ujsportal.pacourts.us\/Report\/MdjDocketSheet?docketNumber=MJ-05214-CR-0000470-2026&amp;dnh=YgEhhtZbCiW0qhIlLxTslg%3D%3D\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">online court records<\/a>, Hicks is awaiting arraignment on the charges she&#8217;s facing.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\n          More from CBS News\n        <\/p>\n<p class=\"content__tags__label\">In:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A mother is facing charges after police said that her 4-year-old son was shot by a gun she&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":108909,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[894,73,75,74,220],"class_list":["post-248622","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-allegheny-county","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news","tag-shooting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248622","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=248622"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248622\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/108909"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=248622"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=248622"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=248622"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}