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

Chicago police say a mother 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 Associated Press

18 Could 2022, 23:06

• 2 min learn

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

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

Through the hearing, prosecutors alleged that the woman'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 mother has a valid firearm owners identification card.

In response to police, the backpack was within the boy's classroom when, simply before 10 a.m. on Tuesday, the gun discharged. The Chicago Sun-Instances reported that prosecutors stated in the course of the hearing that the bullet ricocheted off the floor and grazed the child's abdomen. The child was taken to a hospital in good situation, police said.

In an e-mail to oldsters, the college's principal said the bullet "triggered some particles to ricochet in your youngster’s classroom, which hit a member of our faculty community and induced minor scrapes.” The school didn't reply to a request for touch upon Wednesday.

A teacher then grabbed the backpack and gave it to security officers who found a Glock 19 handgun inside, prosecutors stated through the hearing.

The woman's legal professional, Rodger Clarke, acknowledged that the gun ought to have been locked up and never just positioned underneath the bed. However, he said, “This wasn't one thing she deliberate or something she did on her own volition.”

Cook County Choose Michael Hogan was not impressed by that argument.

“This will likely 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 totally different case and a very totally different tragedy.”