Women charged, accused of leaving children unsupervised with loaded gun when 4-year-old accidentally shot 8-year-old

MILWAUKEE (CBS 58) -- Two women have been charged after a 4-year-old child unintentionally shot and injured an 8-year-old on Nov. 8. 

Nakia Piggee, 27, and Vanta'Jah Westmoreland, 22, are charged with the following:

• Neglecting a child - consequence is great bodily harm, as a party to a crime
• Neglecting a child - specified harm did not occur, as a party to a crime (three counts)

A criminal complaint says officers responded to the apartment near 76th and Northridge Lakes Boulevard and were waved down by a woman, later identified as Piggee, who stated that her daughter had been shot while she was out for groceries. Piggee said that three other children were also present, and she did not know who shot her daughter or where they would have gotten a gun.

The victim identified a 4-year-old in the home as the child who fired the gun, and she was taken to an area hospital for treatment of a gunshot wound near her right shoulder blade. 

Officers spoke with Westmoreland, according to the complaint, who said she is the girlfriend of Piggee, and that after the shooting, a male removed the handgun from their apartment and took it to another unit so no one would get in trouble. 

The complaint says officers observed the one-bedroom apartment as "filthy" and "littered with food, dirty clothes, cigarette ashes and plastic bottles." It goes on to say the bedroom was "littered further with liquor bottles, ashes, ash trays and diapers." A 2-year-old child in arm casts and a feeding tube was located in a crib in the bedroom. Next to the crib was a "dirty, queen-size mattress," and between the mattress and crib, officers located a single 9mm casing. 

Detectives did not locate any firearm safety items anywhere in the apartment. 

Police say Piggee and Westmoreland left the children unsupervised, alone in the apartment, while they went to the store, and only returned when they received a call from one of the children that the victim was bleeding.

Prosecutors allege Westmoreland left her loaded 9mm pistol within reach of the children, while gone for 40 minutes. 

Preliminary hearings are set for Nov. 21.