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

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

ByThe Related Press

18 Could 2022, 23:06

• 2 min read

CHICAGO -- A Chicago mom 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, police said Wednesday.

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

Through the listening to, prosecutors alleged that the woman's 8-year-old son found the gun underneath her bed and took it to Walt Disney Magnet School on the city’s North Side on Tuesday. The mother has a sound firearm house owners identification card.

In line with police, the backpack was within the boy's classroom when, simply before 10 a.m. on Tuesday, the gun discharged. The Chicago Sun-Times reported that prosecutors stated during the listening to that the bullet ricocheted off the ground and grazed the kid's stomach. The kid was taken to a hospital in good condition, police stated.

In an e-mail to oldsters, the varsity's principal said the bullet "triggered some debris to ricochet in your child’s classroom, which hit a member of our school group and brought on minor scrapes.” The varsity didn't 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 through the hearing.

The girl's lawyer, Rodger Clarke, acknowledged that the gun should have been locked up and not just positioned underneath the mattress. But, he mentioned, “This wasn't something she deliberate or one thing she did on her own volition.”

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

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

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