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

Chicago police say a 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

ByThe Associated Press

18 May 2022, 23:06

• 2 min read

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

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

During the listening to, prosecutors alleged that the girl's 8-year-old son discovered the gun beneath her bed and took it to Walt Disney Magnet Faculty on town’s North Facet on Tuesday. The mother has a valid firearm homeowners identification card.

In accordance with police, the backpack was in the boy's classroom when, just earlier than 10 a.m. on Tuesday, the gun discharged. The Chicago Solar-Occasions reported that prosecutors mentioned in the course of the hearing 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 oldsters, the college's principal stated the bullet "triggered some particles to ricochet in your baby’s classroom, which hit a member of our college community and brought on minor scrapes.” The college did not reply to a request for touch upon Wednesday.

A teacher then grabbed the backpack and gave it to security officers who discovered a Glock 19 handgun inside, prosecutors stated in the course of the listening to.

The woman's attorney, Rodger Clarke, acknowledged that the gun should have been locked up and not just placed beneath the mattress. But, he stated, “This wasn't something she planned or something she did on her own volition.”

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

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

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