A mother has been charged
with child abuse after her three year-old son got caught in an airport escalator and died.
Arrests warrants were issued for Jiterria Lightner Tuesday, two months after her boy Jaiden Cowart tumbled to his death at Charlotte Douglas International Airport in North Carolina.
Lightner, who is a single mother, was returning home from Florida with her three kids at the airport in late September when Jaiden wandered into a gap between an escalator and regular staircase.
He got caught in its handrail and pulled upwards along the outside of the escalator, before breaking free and falling to the ground.
His mother was sat less than 15 feet away trying to arrange a ride home at the time.
The toddler was badly injured, and died in hospital three days later, with a coroner ruling his death was caused by ‘blunt force injuries’ and ‘falling from a height.’
Police initially labeled Jaiden’s death a ‘tragic accident,’ with Lightner’s lawyer Michael Greene telling WCNChe was ‘pretty surprised’ by the charges.
He added: ‘She’s a single mother that was watching three children at an airport and I think the circumstances could have happened to a number of us.
‘I don’t think they rise to the level of a crime.’
Greene said lightner is still devastated by what happened to her son, explaining: ‘To this day, she still can’t recount the story without breaking down.
‘This wasn’t an instance where she was not paying attention to her children.
‘They were between the stairs and the escalators when he was carried up on his arm up the escalator.
‘It appears that he was trying to reach over to grab the stair railing and when he tried to grab the railing, that’s when he took the unfortunate fall.’
Lightner plans to turn herself in to police later this week.
She faces up to 150 days in jail if convicted of all three counts of child abuse, with the other two counts related to the other children she stands accused of neglecting
Arrests warrants were issued for Jiterria Lightner Tuesday, two months after her boy Jaiden Cowart tumbled to his death at Charlotte Douglas International Airport in North Carolina.
Lightner, who is a single mother, was returning home from Florida with her three kids at the airport in late September when Jaiden wandered into a gap between an escalator and regular staircase.
He got caught in its handrail and pulled upwards along the outside of the escalator, before breaking free and falling to the ground.
His mother was sat less than 15 feet away trying to arrange a ride home at the time.
The toddler was badly injured, and died in hospital three days later, with a coroner ruling his death was caused by ‘blunt force injuries’ and ‘falling from a height.’
Police initially labeled Jaiden’s death a ‘tragic accident,’ with Lightner’s lawyer Michael Greene telling WCNChe was ‘pretty surprised’ by the charges.
He added: ‘She’s a single mother that was watching three children at an airport and I think the circumstances could have happened to a number of us.
‘I don’t think they rise to the level of a crime.’
Greene said lightner is still devastated by what happened to her son, explaining: ‘To this day, she still can’t recount the story without breaking down.
‘This wasn’t an instance where she was not paying attention to her children.
‘They were between the stairs and the escalators when he was carried up on his arm up the escalator.
‘It appears that he was trying to reach over to grab the stair railing and when he tried to grab the railing, that’s when he took the unfortunate fall.’
Lightner plans to turn herself in to police later this week.
She faces up to 150 days in jail if convicted of all three counts of child abuse, with the other two counts related to the other children she stands accused of neglecting
