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

Chicago police say a mom has been charged with little one endangerment after a gun in her second grader’s backpack by chance 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 child endangerment after a gun in her second grader's backpack accidentally discharged in school, injuring a 7-year-old classmate, police stated Wednesday.

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

Throughout the hearing, prosecutors alleged that the girl's 8-year-old son found the gun beneath her mattress and took it to Walt Disney Magnet School on the city’s North Aspect on Tuesday. The mother has a valid firearm homeowners 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 Sun-Instances reported that prosecutors said in the course of the listening to that the bullet ricocheted off the floor and grazed the child's stomach. The child was taken to a hospital in good situation, police said.

In an e-mail to parents, the college's principal mentioned the bullet "triggered some debris to ricochet in your baby’s classroom, which hit a member of our college neighborhood and brought on minor scrapes.” The varsity didn't reply to a request for comment on Wednesday.

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

The lady's attorney, Rodger Clarke, acknowledged that the gun ought to have been locked up and never just placed beneath the bed. But, he mentioned, “This wasn't something she planned or one thing she did on her personal volition.”

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

“This may increasingly not have been an intentional act, but it's a supremely negligent act,” he said.

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