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 accident discharged at college, injuring a 7-year-old classmate

ByThe Associated Press

18 Might 2022, 23:06

• 2 min learn

CHICAGO -- A Chicago 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, police stated Wednesday.

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

Throughout the hearing, prosecutors alleged that the girl's 8-year-old son found the gun beneath her bed and took it to Walt Disney Magnet Faculty on the city’s North Facet on Tuesday. The mom has a legitimate firearm owners identification card.

Based on police, the backpack was within the boy's classroom when, just before 10 a.m. on Tuesday, the gun discharged. The Chicago Solar-Instances reported that prosecutors stated during the listening to that the bullet ricocheted off the floor and grazed the kid's abdomen. The kid was taken to a hospital in good situation, police stated.

In an email to parents, the school's principal said the bullet "caused some debris to ricochet in your baby’s classroom, which hit a member of our faculty group and caused minor scrapes.” The varsity didn't reply to a request for touch upon Wednesday.

A teacher then grabbed the backpack and gave it to security officers who found a Glock 19 handgun inside, prosecutors said through the listening to.

The woman's attorney, Rodger Clarke, acknowledged that the gun ought to have been locked up and never simply positioned beneath the bed. But, he stated, “This wasn't one thing she planned or one thing she did on her personal volition.”

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

“This may not have been an intentional act, however it is a supremely negligent act,” he mentioned.

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