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

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

ByThe Related Press

18 Might 2022, 23:06

• 2 min read

CHICAGO -- A Chicago mother has been charged with youngster endangerment after a gun in her second grader's backpack accidentally discharged at college, injuring a 7-year-old classmate, police mentioned Wednesday.

The 28-year-old woman appeared in courtroom on Wednesday on three misdemeanor youngster endangerment counts. A choose ordered her launch 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 underneath her bed and took it to Walt Disney Magnet School on the city’s North Aspect on Tuesday. The mom has a sound firearm owners identification card.

According to police, the backpack was within the boy's classroom when, simply before 10 a.m. on Tuesday, the gun discharged. The Chicago Solar-Instances reported that prosecutors stated through 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 situation, police stated.

In an email to oldsters, the varsity's principal said the bullet "induced some particles to ricochet in your child’s classroom, which hit a member of our college neighborhood and triggered minor scrapes.” The college 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 said during the hearing.

The lady's lawyer, Rodger Clarke, acknowledged that the gun ought to have been locked up and never simply positioned beneath the mattress. But, he said, “This wasn't one thing she planned or one thing she did on her personal volition.”

Cook dinner County Choose 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 stated.

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