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

Chicago police say a mother has been charged with little one endangerment after a gun in her second grader’s backpack by accident 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 by accident discharged in school, injuring a 7-year-old classmate, police mentioned Wednesday.

The 28-year-old woman appeared in courtroom on Wednesday on three misdemeanor child endangerment counts. A decide ordered her launch from Cook County Jail on $1,000 bond.

During the hearing, prosecutors alleged that the lady's 8-year-old son discovered the gun underneath her mattress and took it to Walt Disney Magnet School on town’s North Aspect on Tuesday. The mother has a sound firearm house owners identification card.

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

In an email to oldsters, the varsity's principal mentioned the bullet "brought about some debris to ricochet in your child’s classroom, which hit a member of our college community and induced minor scrapes.” The varsity didn't reply to a request for touch upon Wednesday.

A instructor then grabbed the backpack and gave it to safety officers who found a Glock 19 handgun inside, prosecutors mentioned through the listening to.

The woman's lawyer, Rodger Clarke, acknowledged that the gun should have been locked up and never simply positioned underneath the mattress. However, he mentioned, “This wasn't one thing she planned or one thing she did on her own volition.”

Prepare dinner County Decide Michael Hogan was not impressed by that argument.

“This may not have been an intentional act, however it is a supremely negligent act,” he stated.

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