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

Chicago police say a mother has been charged with child endangerment after a gun in her second grader’s backpack accidentally discharged at college, 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 little one 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 girl appeared in courtroom on Wednesday on three misdemeanor baby endangerment counts. A judge ordered her launch from Cook dinner County Jail on $1,000 bond.

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

In line with police, the backpack was in the boy's classroom when, simply before 10 a.m. on Tuesday, the gun discharged. The Chicago Solar-Times reported that prosecutors stated during 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 parents, the varsity's principal said the bullet "brought on some debris to ricochet in your baby’s classroom, which hit a member of our faculty community and brought on minor scrapes.” The school 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 stated during the listening to.

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

Cook dinner County Judge 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 mentioned.

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