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

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

ByThe Associated Press

18 Could 2022, 23:06

• 2 min learn

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

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

Through the hearing, prosecutors alleged that the lady's 8-year-old son found the gun beneath her bed and took it to Walt Disney Magnet School on the city’s North Side on Tuesday. The mother has a legitimate firearm homeowners identification card.

According to police, the backpack was within the boy's classroom when, simply earlier than 10 a.m. on Tuesday, the gun discharged. The Chicago Sun-Instances reported that prosecutors mentioned during the hearing that the bullet ricocheted off the floor and grazed the child's stomach. The kid was taken to a hospital in good situation, police said.

In an e mail to parents, the college's principal said the bullet "induced some debris to ricochet in your child’s classroom, which hit a member of our faculty community and brought on minor scrapes.” The varsity did not respond to a request for touch upon Wednesday.

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

The girl's attorney, Rodger Clarke, acknowledged that the gun should have been locked up and never simply positioned under the bed. But, he stated, “This wasn't one thing she planned or one thing she did on her own volition.”

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

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

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