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

Chicago police say a mom 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 Associated Press

18 Might 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 unintentionally discharged at college, injuring a 7-year-old classmate, police said Wednesday.

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

Throughout the hearing, prosecutors alleged that the lady's 8-year-old son found the gun underneath her bed and took it to Walt Disney Magnet College on town’s North Side on Tuesday. The mother has a legitimate firearm homeowners identification card.

In keeping with police, the backpack was in the boy's classroom when, just earlier than 10 a.m. on Tuesday, the gun discharged. The Chicago Solar-Times reported that prosecutors stated through the hearing that the bullet ricocheted off the ground and grazed the kid's stomach. The child was taken to a hospital in good condition, police stated.

In an email to oldsters, the college's principal said the bullet "prompted some particles to ricochet in your little one’s classroom, which hit a member of our faculty neighborhood and triggered minor scrapes.” The varsity didn't reply to a request for comment on Wednesday.

A teacher then grabbed the backpack and gave it to safety officers who found a Glock 19 handgun inside, prosecutors mentioned in the course of the listening to.

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

Prepare dinner County Decide 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 stated.

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