Gun in 8-year-old’s backpack goes off in school, mother charged

Chicago police say a mother has been charged with child endangerment after a gun in her second grader’s backpack unintentionally discharged at college, injuring a 7-year-old classmate

ByThe Related Press

18 Could 2022, 23:06

• 2 min read

CHICAGO -- A Chicago mother has been charged with youngster endangerment after a gun in her second grader's backpack accidentally discharged in school, injuring a 7-year-old classmate, police said Wednesday.

The 28-year-old girl appeared in court docket on Wednesday on three misdemeanor baby endangerment counts. A choose ordered her release from Cook County Jail on $1,000 bond.

Throughout the hearing, prosecutors alleged that the lady's 8-year-old son discovered the gun beneath her bed and took it to Walt Disney Magnet Faculty on the city’s North Side on Tuesday. The mom has a valid firearm house owners identification card.

In accordance with police, the backpack was within the boy's classroom when, just before 10 a.m. on Tuesday, the gun discharged. The Chicago Solar-Occasions reported that prosecutors stated through the listening to that the bullet ricocheted off the floor and grazed the kid's stomach. The kid was taken to a hospital in good situation, police said.

In an e mail to folks, the college's principal mentioned the bullet "prompted some particles to ricochet in your baby’s classroom, which hit a member of our faculty community and precipitated minor scrapes.” The varsity did not respond to a request for touch upon Wednesday.

A instructor then grabbed the backpack and gave it to safety officers who discovered a Glock 19 handgun inside, prosecutors mentioned in the course of the hearing.

The woman's legal professional, Rodger Clarke, acknowledged that the gun should have been locked up and never just placed below the mattress. But, he mentioned, “This wasn't one thing she deliberate or something she did on her personal volition.”

Cook dinner County Judge Michael Hogan was not impressed by that argument.

“This will likely not have been an intentional act, however it's a supremely negligent act,” he mentioned.

He continued: “We are inches away, probably centimeters away, from a very totally different case and a very completely different tragedy.”