Guns are found in a lot of toys, but they’re typically of the play variety. Heck, I loved playing cops and robbers and G.I. Joes when I was a kid. It was all part of the fun, but one little girl’s Christmas gift ended up with the wrong kind of gun – a real one.
The New York Post reports that an 8-year-old-girl from Harlem received a Teddy Bear as part of a gift collection effort at a local church. The bear looked innocuous enough, but there was a gun inside the packaging. The girl’s foster parent, Sheeba Anderson, said that her family “narrowly avoided what could have been a terrible disaster” as the gun was inoperable.
As for the child herself, she didn’t seem too concerned. In fact, upon finding the gun, she waved it around exclaiming, “Look, Miss Sheeba, I found a gun.” After that, Anderson examined all the gifts she received from the church to make sure none contained other items like “drugs or needles.”
Police are currently investigating how the gun got into the packaging, but Anderson is demanding that gift donation centers step up their security and screening process. The anonymity of the donations is especially worrisome for her as she puts it – the gifts “could have come from anywhere and anyone.”