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

Chicago police say a mom has been charged with little one 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 Could 2022, 23:06

• 2 min learn

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

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

During 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 Faculty on town’s North Facet on Tuesday. The mother has a valid 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 Solar-Occasions reported that prosecutors stated during the listening to that the bullet ricocheted off the ground and grazed the child's stomach. The kid was taken to a hospital in good situation, police said.

In an electronic mail to parents, the varsity's principal said the bullet "triggered some debris to ricochet in your youngster’s classroom, which hit a member of our college group and brought about minor scrapes.” The school didn't reply 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 mentioned during the listening to.

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

Prepare dinner County Judge 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 mentioned.

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