Felon's ‘Utter Carelessness’ Caused Child To Be Shot In The Face

MARIETTA, GA -- A Tennessee felon who left a loaded handgun near young children in a Cobb motel, resulting in a child being shot in the face by another child, has pleaded guilty to several charges and been sentenced to prison. On Thursday afternoon, Tashia Lenette Woods, 34, pleaded guilty to cruelty to children in the second degree, possession of a firearm during commission of a felony, theft by receiving stolen property, two counts of tampering with evidence, reckless conduct, and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon.

On Memorial Day Weekend 2018, a group of adults and children traveled to Cobb from Tennessee to visit Six Flags Over Georgia and stayed at the Comfort Inn & Suites near SunTrust Park. About 11:30 a.m. on May 28, Woods left the motel room she was sharing with other members of the group and went outside to the large trash bins, looking for marijuana she had mistakenly thrown away the night before.

While she was outside, her five-year-old nephew found the loaded gun in Woods’ bag and fired a round that struck a three-year-old boy in the face. The bullet went through the victim’s cheeks, blasting out several teeth..

As the child was screaming and crying and others in the group trying to help him, Woods returned to the room, retrieved the gun and then tried to hide it in a trash can and then in a hidden compartment of a vehicle. Woods and the victim’s father then drove the child away from the hotel

No one in the group called 911, but a hotel employee did, and described the vehicle and tag number. Cobb police who were working the Braves game nearby rushed to the scene and conducted a traffic stop on the vehicle. The child was transported to Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta.

Woods vehemently denied having or knowing anything about a gun. But others in the group told police the gun belonged to Woods. Officers found the firearm while searching the vehicle. A trace on the serial number on the gun revealed it had been stolen from a gun store several months earlier.

Hotel security video showed Woods apparently ignoring the child while retrieving the gun from the room and then trying to hide it. Police also learned Woods had previously been convicted in Tennessee of selling cocaine in a school zone, and as a convicted felon should not have been in possession of any firearm. In recorded calls Woods made from the jail, she acknowledged the gun was hers and criticized the others as “snitches.”

“One thing prison does is keep the community safe. Ma’am, you’re kind of the poster child for that,” Judge Ann Harris told Woods. “Your utter carelessness suggests you really do need to be off the street.”

The victim’s mother says her son, now 4, is doing well but has suffered some speech problems resulting from the damage to his tongue, and has scars on both of his cheeks.