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 at school, 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 little one 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 girl appeared in court docket on Wednesday on three misdemeanor child endangerment counts. A judge ordered her release from Cook County Jail on $1,000 bond.

During the listening to, prosecutors alleged that the woman's 8-year-old son discovered the gun beneath her bed and took it to Walt Disney Magnet Faculty on town’s North Side on Tuesday. The mother has a sound firearm house 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 Solar-Instances reported that prosecutors stated in the course of the listening to that the bullet ricocheted off the floor and grazed the kid's abdomen. The child was taken to a hospital in good situation, police mentioned.

In an e-mail to oldsters, the varsity's principal mentioned the bullet "triggered some particles to ricochet in your little one’s classroom, which hit a member of our faculty neighborhood and prompted minor scrapes.” The college did not respond 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 listening to.

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

Cook dinner County Judge Michael Hogan was not impressed by that argument.

“This may occasionally not have been an intentional act, however it is a supremely negligent act,” he mentioned.

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