Prosecutors said a handgun found in a Detroit home’s bathroom discharged while Adriana Arnold was handling it, wounding her younger sister.
DETROIT, Mich. — A case that began after authorities said an unsecured handgun was found in a bathroom and discharged inside a west-side Detroit home is headed to sentencing after a 21-year-old woman pleaded guilty.
Adriana Arnold entered the plea Oct. 8 to one count of careless discharge of a firearm causing injury or death. Her 13-year-old sister was wounded in the left arm during the Aug. 25 shooting but survived, according to the Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office. Arnold is scheduled to be sentenced Nov. 10.
The shooting was reported at about 1:50 a.m. at a home in the 16100 block of Chatham Street. Detroit police officers responding to the residence found the younger girl with a gunshot wound to her left arm. Medics then transported her to a local hospital for treatment.
Prosecutors said Arnold had found an unsecured handgun in a bathroom inside the home. While she was handling the firearm, authorities alleged, it discharged and struck her sister. That account formed the basis of the criminal case announced by Wayne County prosecutors two days after the shooting.
The prosecutor’s office charged Arnold on Aug. 27 with one count of careless discharge of a firearm causing injury or death. She was arraigned that afternoon in Detroit’s 36th District Court before Magistrate Delphia Burton and was given a $10,000 personal bond. At that stage of the case, the allegations had not been proven and Arnold was presumed innocent.
Her Oct. 8 guilty plea changed the procedural status of the case. Instead of moving through the remaining pretrial process on the firearm count, the matter is now set for a sentencing hearing. Public reporting reviewed for the case does not identify another charge resolved through the plea or disclose the sentence that may be requested.
The younger sister’s identity has not been publicly released in the reports reviewed. Authorities described the shooting as nonfatal, but they have not provided detailed public information about the girl’s condition after her initial hospital treatment. The limited information released about the minor has kept the public focus of the case on the circumstances surrounding the firearm and the resulting court proceedings.
The case began with an early-morning police response, followed by Arnold’s arrest and arraignment, and has now reached the sentencing phase less than two months after the shooting. Prosecutors have consistently identified the firearm as unsecured in their description of how Arnold came across it before the discharge.
Arnold’s sentencing is scheduled for Nov. 10. No sentence had been imposed as of Oct. 10, and the available public reports did not state whether the court had received a sentencing recommendation from either side.
Author note: Last updated Oct. 10, 2026.