HOUSTON – Houston city leaders said a new gun-violence data dashboard reveals a troubling trend in Houston: accidental shooting deaths involving children are increasing. For one Deer Park mother, that statistic is painfully personal.
Nearly eight years ago, 14-year-old Adrienne Lambert was killed when a friend unintentionally fired a gun that had been left unsecured inside a home.
“He picked up his dad’s gun,” said Lambert’s mother Marentha Sargent. “His dad took the magazine out, but he did not clear the chamber. And so he pointed it at her and then that was it."
Sargent said the grief never goes away. She remembers Adrienne as a bright, joyful teen.
“She was very spunky,” said Sargent. “Her laugh was just the best laugh in the world. She was kind, genuine and always laughing.”
Accidental gun deaths among young people are quietly on the rise in Houston, according to city leaders.
“There are just so many firearms out there that are not being secured properly,” said Sargent.
Texas law makes it a crime to make a firearm accessible to a minor.
“The most important thing is protecting our kids because they they can’t protect themselves,” said Sargent.
In Adrienne’s case, the boy who fired the gun served time in the juvenile detention center.
The father and mother of the boy were charged with making a firearm accessible to a minor.
Sargent has become an advocate for gun-safety education. A gun owner herself, she now regularly hands out free gun safes at events.