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

Chicago police say a mom 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 Might 2022, 23:06

• 2 min learn

CHICAGO -- A Chicago 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, police said Wednesday.

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

Throughout the listening to, prosecutors alleged that the lady's 8-year-old son discovered the gun underneath her bed and took it to Walt Disney Magnet College on the city’s North Side on Tuesday. The mom has a legitimate firearm owners identification card.

In accordance with police, the backpack was within the boy's classroom when, just before 10 a.m. on Tuesday, the gun discharged. The Chicago Solar-Instances reported that prosecutors mentioned in the course of the listening to that the bullet ricocheted off the ground and grazed the kid's abdomen. The child was taken to a hospital in good condition, police stated.

In an e mail to folks, the school's principal stated the bullet "prompted some particles to ricochet in your baby’s classroom, which hit a member of our faculty group and brought on minor scrapes.” The college did not 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 stated during the listening to.

The lady's lawyer, Rodger Clarke, acknowledged that the gun ought to have been locked up and not just positioned below the bed. However, he mentioned, “This wasn't something she planned or something she did on her personal volition.”

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

“This will 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 completely different case and a very different tragedy.”