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

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

ByThe Associated Press

18 Could 2022, 23:06

• 2 min learn

CHICAGO -- A Chicago mother has been charged with baby endangerment after a gun in her second grader's backpack by chance 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 judge ordered her release from Cook dinner County Jail on $1,000 bond.

Through the hearing, prosecutors alleged that the lady's 8-year-old son found the gun beneath her mattress and took it to Walt Disney Magnet Faculty on the city’s North Facet on Tuesday. The mother has a sound firearm homeowners identification card.

In keeping with police, the backpack was in the boy's classroom when, simply before 10 a.m. on Tuesday, the gun discharged. The Chicago Solar-Instances reported that prosecutors said through the listening to that the bullet ricocheted off the ground and grazed the kid's abdomen. The kid was taken to a hospital in good condition, police said.

In an email to oldsters, the college's principal mentioned the bullet "brought about some particles to ricochet in your youngster’s classroom, which hit a member of our school neighborhood and precipitated minor scrapes.” The college did not 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 mentioned during the hearing.

The lady's attorney, Rodger Clarke, acknowledged that the gun ought to have been locked up and never just positioned beneath the mattress. However, he said, “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 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 very different case and a really different tragedy.”