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

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

ByThe Associated Press

18 Could 2022, 23:06

• 2 min learn

CHICAGO -- A Chicago mom has been charged with baby endangerment after a gun in her second grader's backpack unintentionally discharged at college, injuring a 7-year-old classmate, police said 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.

During the listening to, prosecutors alleged that the lady's 8-year-old son discovered the gun beneath her bed and took it to Walt Disney Magnet Faculty on the city’s North Facet on Tuesday. The mother has a sound firearm homeowners identification card.

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

In an e-mail to oldsters, the school's principal said the bullet "prompted some debris to ricochet in your child’s classroom, which hit a member of our college group and induced minor scrapes.” The varsity did not reply to a request for comment on Wednesday.

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

The woman's legal professional, Rodger Clarke, acknowledged that the gun should have been locked up and never just placed beneath the bed. But, he said, “This wasn't one thing she planned or something she did on her personal volition.”

Prepare dinner County Decide 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 totally different case and a really completely different tragedy.”