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

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

ByThe Related Press

18 Might 2022, 23:06

• 2 min read

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

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

Through the hearing, prosecutors alleged that the woman's 8-year-old son discovered the gun beneath her bed and took it to Walt Disney Magnet School on the town’s North Side on Tuesday. The mom has a valid firearm owners identification card.

In response to police, the backpack was in the boy's classroom when, simply before 10 a.m. on Tuesday, the gun discharged. The Chicago Sun-Occasions reported that prosecutors stated in the course of 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 stated.

In an e-mail to folks, the college's principal said the bullet "caused some debris to ricochet in your child’s classroom, which hit a member of our school neighborhood and prompted minor scrapes.” The school didn't respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.

A teacher then grabbed the backpack and gave it to safety officers who discovered a Glock 19 handgun inside, prosecutors mentioned throughout the hearing.

The lady's legal professional, Rodger Clarke, acknowledged that the gun should have been locked up and not just placed below the mattress. But, he mentioned, “This wasn't something she deliberate or one thing she did on her own volition.”

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

“This may occasionally not have been an intentional act, but it's a supremely negligent act,” he said.

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