BLOOMINGTON – The parents of a 16-year-old male are facing a charge of dangerous control of a child after being accused of allowing their son access to loaded guns.
Police arrested the boy’s parents Gregory Cordell Baker Sr. on Friday, October 27, on a misdemeanor charge of unlawful carrying of a handgun and dangerous control of a child, a felony. The boy’s mother Olinida K. Allen was arrested on Saturday, October 28 on a felony charge of dangerous control of a child.
Both were transported to the Monroe County Jail and are being held on a $5,000 bond.
According to state law, it is illegal for a parent to allow a child to possess a firearm, if they “knowingly, intentionally, or recklessly permit the child to possess a firearm while aware of a substantial risk that the child will use the firearm to commit a felony; and failing to make reasonable efforts to prevent the use of a firearm by the child to commit a felony; or when the child has been convicted of a crime of violence or has been adjudicated as a juvenile for an offense that would constitute a crime of violence if the child were an adult.”
Police began their investigation after they learned the teen who is serving a sentence on house arrest and probation after participating in an armed robbery, carried a loaded rifle out of his house in the 2100 block of South Rockport Road.
The investigation began on Monday, October 16 after a report of a shooting at Winslow Plaza where two men were firing guns at each other in the parking lot. No one was injured, but bullets struck a building.
While conducting surveillance at the Rockport Road residence that afternoon, officers saw a young male walk out onto the porch holding a “long, black object.” The two suspects in the Winslow Plaza shooting then entered that house.
Police obtained a search warrant for the house, and found a loaded Anderson Manufacturing AM-15 with a round in the chamber.
Inside a bedroom, police found a loaded Ruger .380 pistol and a loaded Glock 9mm.
Baker Sr. and Allen admitted to being the parents of the teen who was on the porch with the loaded rifle. They told police all the weapons belonged to Allen.
