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

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

ByThe Related 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 accidentally 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 child endangerment counts. A judge ordered her launch from Prepare dinner County Jail on $1,000 bond.

Throughout the hearing, prosecutors alleged that the woman's 8-year-old son found the gun beneath her bed and took it to Walt Disney Magnet College on the town’s North Aspect on Tuesday. The mom has a sound firearm owners identification card.

In line with police, the backpack was within the boy's classroom when, simply before 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 ground and grazed the kid's abdomen. The child was taken to a hospital in good condition, police stated.

In an electronic mail to oldsters, the college's principal stated the bullet "brought on some debris to ricochet in your baby’s classroom, which hit a member of our college neighborhood and precipitated minor scrapes.” The school did not respond to a request for touch upon Wednesday.

A trainer then grabbed the backpack and gave it to safety officers who discovered a Glock 19 handgun inside, prosecutors stated during the listening to.

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

Cook County Decide 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 different case and a really totally different tragedy.”