Marquell Buie was convicted of negligent child abuse. He was sentenced to 18 months in prison. (Photo: Omaha.com)
An Omaha, Nebraska, man known to have gang affiliations has been sentenced to 18 months in prison after his daughter was shot in the face by his friend’s 22-month-old son.
Marquell Buie, 22, was convicted of negligent child abuse after leaving his loaded handgun on a kitchen counter where it was picked up and fired by the two-year-old boy. Buie’s daughter, 17-month-old Ma’Laya, was shot in the face.
The young girl survived, but she suffered the loss of an eye and extensive brain damage.
Investigators learned that Buie and a friend, 22-year-old Mosell Gulley, were smoking marijuana and watching a movie while their young children played, according to the Omaha World-Herald. The 9mm round fired by Gully’s son passed through Ma’Laya’s face before embedding itself in a hot water heater.
Buie pled no-contest to negligent child abuse resulting in serious bodily injury. Douglas County District Judge Mark Ashford sentenced Buie to the maximum three-year term. Which is cut in half under state law.
After he completes his sentence, Buie will serve a term of nine months of supervised release. He was also ordered last summer to have no contact with his daughter.
Doctors initially thought Ma’Laya would not survive her injuries, according to prosecutor Eric Fabian. When she was eventually released from the hospital, she entered Madonna Rehabilitation Hospital. There, therapists had to teach her to walk, talk, and eat again.
Ragine Moore, Ma’Laya’s mother and Buie’s girlfriend, told the World-Herald that doctors hope continuing rehab will allow Ma’Laya to fully recover. But it’s still too early to tell.
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Moore also said that she believes the child abuse charges leveled against her boyfriend are unfair. She argued that Buie cooperated with police and wasn’t the one who pulled the trigger.
“The charges should be on the parent of the child that shot my daughter — his child was unattended,” said Moore, 22, referring to Gulley.
She told the World-Herald that she’s having trouble making ends meet after Buie’s incarceration, since his job at Nebraska Furniture Mart was the family’s source of income.
“He’s not doing good, he wants to see his baby,” she said of Buie. “It’s his daughter, and he’s missing out on her recovery process.”
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, unintentional injury was the leading cause of death in children ages 1-4 in 2015. Drowning, traffic accidents, suffocation, and fire were the top four causes of unintentional death by injury. Negligent discharge of a firearm did not make the list.
I love the mother’s take about the other child being “unattended”. So was her daughter. If either child was “attended”, this would have never happened. Still, leaving a loaded firearm within reach of children with ZERO supervision is obviously lunacy. The picture of the idiot gun owner speaks volumes. Spends more time on his hair and smoking dope than child rearing.
18 months? Are you f@cking kidding me? 18 years and that would be more suited for this lame POS…
This is our ridiculous justice system. They love the catch and release system IMO, if you are caught red handed..say of murder or multiple murders with witnesses and or cameras….there should be no trial. Just straight up execution on the spot. Save everyone a ton of money and keep prisons from being over populated for housing those scumbags and giving them 3 meals and a beds to sleep in for free at the expense of the taxpayers dime for the rest of their lives
There is something wrong with the prosecutor and the judge in that jurisdiction to only sentence him to 18 months……. I imagine he paid a high dollar lawyer who shares his money…
Reading comprehension isn’t your strong suit is it? He was sentenced to the maximum allowable under the law which is 3 years. That is cut in half by state law. Try to keep up here.
Contnued poor reporting by the Omaha World Herald. This is a “known” gang member but no mention of any prior convictions that would have disqualified him from being in possession of a firearm. Omaha also requires registration of handguns if one doesn’t have a concealed carry permit and it’s my guess most gang bangers don’t bother with the training and background check that would require. It seems the gun charges are always the first thing to get dropped when career miscreants make a plea deal. The bad actors thank Douglas County prosecutor Don Kleine for his continued support.
Now we have all these people who want to feel sorry for the family. But who do you think will pay the majority of the hospital bills, the long term care and the disability expenses for this child. That may seem to be a harsh statement at this time, but to face facts, it is harsh at times. We have a known gang member with a loaded gun. 18 months for causing a child to be permanently disfigured and now our tax dollars will be used for the next 50 years to take care of this criminals kid.
i’m with you on this and also i would bet that the mother is already on welfare of some kind as it doesn’t say they are married. all these people are the problem with our country and the main reason we are broke, not going broke. i think we’re up to 11 TRILLION dollars in debt now and anyone with half a brain knows we’ll never pay this off we’ll just keep turning on the press and printing more worthless paper money as we go along. thank you president nixon for getting us out of the gold market, when every dollar was backed by the amount of gold we had in fort knox, that kept the government in check as it were. we’ve been racking up debt ever since. so say to these scum and all like them i have no problem with them and others dying off and leaving us one less to suck at the tit of the tax payer.
So your sayin that black people is the reason for the country being a shitty mess?! Maan! You and that frame of mind is the problem.
Wow! Didn’t take long for you to pull out the race card! Nowhere in David’s comments did he say blacks were the problem. He said gang members and people who are on welfare instead of being responsible for themselves.
” Yeah, these people are the problem. The doctors should’ve refused treatment & let the little girl die so tax payers won’t have to pay her doctor bills. It would also help put an end to black bloodlines.” Make America white again right? But really its people like you that’s wrong with America. True, the little girls parents are ignorant, & irresponsible, but it ain’t her fault.
They breed like rats and live like cats.
Racist as fuck! Smh
Be fore we are quick to criticize others maybe we should look at ourselves, look up redneck, by Rebel Son. just for laughs
I can’t wait until marijuana is legal nationwide. It’s such an innocent thing, nobody ever gets hurt from its use, sale or distribution. Ha!
They could just as easily have been drinking alcohol. Please don’t blame the substance being used. Blame the user. “Marijuana” (Latin name Cannabis) has tons of beneficial uses. In the right form (atomizer, tincture, oil, fresh leaves) it has healing properties that are superior to prescription drugs, and it doesn’t have side effects or cause additional medical problems like all prescription (and a lot of the OTC) drugs. Aspirin alone has caused several thousand deaths per year.
I don’t advocate that people should just be able to purchase cannabis (like in California and Colorado), but people like you need to be educated on the amazing benefits of cannabis. Of course, Big Pharma doesn’t want it legalized because they can’t patent it (besides, our federal government already has a patent on CBDs in cannabis), and they know that they’ll lose billions of dollars of revenue from lost sales.
Joefoam, you redneck, how can criticize something as wonderful as Latin name cannabis, those gang members were just selling tinctures and oils as well as fresh leaves and just because a childs face is blown off you want to blame harmless love grass. Just because it will likely cost hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical bills and a life never fully achieved you stoop so low as to mock wonder drugs like marijuana. Judi, I’ve got a tip for you, “get your head out of your A– before its too late”
Its always sad and tragic when an innocent is harmed by any means. Thankfully brilliant genius lawmakers have the for site to ban bumpstocks and silencers. Gang enforcement laws? nope, criminal misuse laws? nope!
Liberals are afoot in Nebraska too it seems. A state laws that automatically cuts your time in half is a bad state law.