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

Chicago police say a mother has been charged with little one endangerment after a gun in her second grader’s backpack by chance discharged at 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 accident discharged at college, injuring a 7-year-old classmate, police said Wednesday.

The 28-year-old lady appeared in court on Wednesday on three misdemeanor little one endangerment counts. A decide ordered her launch from Cook dinner County Jail on $1,000 bond.

Through the listening to, prosecutors alleged that the girl's 8-year-old son found the gun underneath her bed and took it to Walt Disney Magnet Faculty on the town’s North Side on Tuesday. The mom has a sound firearm homeowners identification card.

In accordance with 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 during the hearing that the bullet ricocheted off the ground and grazed the kid's abdomen. The kid was taken to a hospital in good situation, police mentioned.

In an e mail to oldsters, the college's principal mentioned the bullet "triggered some particles to ricochet in your little one’s classroom, which hit a member of our faculty group and brought about minor scrapes.” The varsity didn't respond to a request for touch upon Wednesday.

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

The girl's legal professional, Rodger Clarke, acknowledged that the gun ought to have been locked up and never just positioned under the mattress. However, he mentioned, “This wasn't one thing she deliberate or something she did on her own volition.”

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

“This will not have been an intentional act, but it is a supremely negligent act,” he said.

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