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

Chicago police say a 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

ByThe Related Press

18 May 2022, 23:06

• 2 min read

CHICAGO -- A Chicago mother has been charged with youngster endangerment after a gun in her second grader's backpack by chance discharged in school, injuring a 7-year-old classmate, police stated Wednesday.

The 28-year-old girl appeared in court docket on Wednesday on three misdemeanor little one endangerment counts. A choose ordered her release from Cook County Jail on $1,000 bond.

In the course of the listening to, prosecutors alleged that the girl's 8-year-old son discovered the gun underneath her mattress and took it to Walt Disney Magnet Faculty on town’s North Facet on Tuesday. The mother has a valid firearm homeowners identification card.

In response to police, the backpack was within the boy's classroom when, just earlier than 10 a.m. on Tuesday, the gun discharged. The Chicago Sun-Occasions reported that prosecutors stated in the course of the listening to that the bullet ricocheted off the floor and grazed the kid's stomach. The kid was taken to a hospital in good condition, police mentioned.

In an e mail to oldsters, the college's principal said the bullet "prompted some particles to ricochet in your youngster’s classroom, which hit a member of our faculty neighborhood and precipitated minor scrapes.” The college did not reply to a request for comment on Wednesday.

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

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

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

“This may occasionally not have been an intentional act, but it's a supremely negligent act,” he said.

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