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

Chicago police say a mom 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 youngster endangerment after a gun in her second grader's backpack by accident discharged in school, injuring a 7-year-old classmate, police said Wednesday.

The 28-year-old woman appeared in court on Wednesday on three misdemeanor little one endangerment counts. A decide ordered her launch from Prepare dinner County Jail on $1,000 bond.

In the course of the listening to, prosecutors alleged that the lady's 8-year-old son found the gun beneath her bed and took it to Walt Disney Magnet College on town’s North Aspect on Tuesday. The mother has a sound firearm owners identification card.

In response to police, the backpack was within the boy's classroom when, simply earlier than 10 a.m. on Tuesday, the gun discharged. The Chicago Sun-Times reported that prosecutors said during the listening to that the bullet ricocheted off the floor and grazed the child's abdomen. The kid was taken to a hospital in good situation, police stated.

In an e mail to folks, the varsity's principal stated the bullet "precipitated some debris to ricochet in your baby’s classroom, which hit a member of our college group and prompted minor scrapes.” The school did not respond 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 stated during the hearing.

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

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

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

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