Gun in 8-year-old’s backpack goes off in school, mother 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 college, injuring a 7-year-old classmate

ByThe Associated Press

18 May 2022, 23:06

• 2 min learn

CHICAGO -- A Chicago mom has been charged with child 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 lady appeared in court on Wednesday on three misdemeanor child endangerment counts. A judge ordered her launch from Cook dinner County Jail on $1,000 bond.

Through the hearing, prosecutors alleged that the woman's 8-year-old son discovered the gun beneath her bed and took it to Walt Disney Magnet College on the city’s North Side on Tuesday. The mom has a valid firearm house owners identification card.

In keeping with police, the backpack was within the boy's classroom when, just before 10 a.m. on Tuesday, the gun discharged. The Chicago Sun-Times reported that prosecutors said throughout the listening to that the bullet ricocheted off the ground and grazed the child's stomach. The child was taken to a hospital in good condition, police said.

In an e mail to folks, the college's principal mentioned the bullet "precipitated some particles to ricochet in your youngster’s classroom, which hit a member of our college neighborhood and brought about minor scrapes.” The college didn't reply to a request for comment on Wednesday.

A trainer then grabbed the backpack and gave it to security officers who found a Glock 19 handgun inside, prosecutors stated during the hearing.

The girl's lawyer, Rodger Clarke, acknowledged that the gun should have been locked up and never just placed underneath the mattress. But, he mentioned, “This wasn't something she deliberate or one thing she did on her own volition.”

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

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

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