Wichita woman says her negligence led to granddaughter shooting self, document says

The Wichita grandmother of a 4-year-old girl who shot herself on April 11 said it was negligence that she left her handgun in a bedroom at the back of her store where her granddaughter watches TV, according to a probable cause affidavit released Friday.

The girl had gunshot wounds to her stomach and buttocks, the court document says. She was taken to the hospital in critical condition. Police were called at 1:50 p.m.

Ana R. Sorto Mejia was charged with two counts of aggravated endangering of a child. She is next due in court June 27 for a preliminary hearing.

Here is what the court document says:

The 50-year-old had picked up her granddaughter from school and brought her to her three-week-old business in the 2500 block of East Harry and went to run errands, including taking money to the bank, before she got a call from her 27-year-old daughter that the girl had shot herself.

The business is in a strip mall.

The daughter told a detective that she was at the register and her niece was in the bedroom in back. She had heard the girl go to the bathroom and then back to the bedroom, where she watches TV, before hearing a gunshot.

She found her lying face down and bleeding from her bottom. She picked up her niece and put her on the bed. She called her mother to ask if there was a gun in the bedroom and her mother said she forgot that she had left it under the pillow — the mother later told a detective it was on a shelf in the bedroom.

The daughter then called 911.

The daughter told a detective that her mother had taken a gun safety class and wanted her to as well. She said there was usually a gun under the register.

Mejia said she normally moves the gun to the bedroom at night and then back to under the register during the day.

Mejia “said that she’d left the handgun in the room because (the girl) was going to stay with family after school and wasn’t going to be taken back to the business as usual, so she forgot she’d left it in the room when she left,” the document says. Mejia said the girl is “autistic, and due to her condition, she has to be very careful as she ‘touches everything.’”

This story was originally published June 7, 2025 at 1:18 PM.