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

Chicago police say a mother has been charged with little one endangerment after a gun in her second grader’s backpack accidentally discharged at school, injuring a 7-year-old classmate

ByThe Related 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 in school, injuring a 7-year-old classmate, police stated Wednesday.

The 28-year-old girl appeared in courtroom on Wednesday on three misdemeanor youngster endangerment counts. A judge ordered her launch from Prepare dinner County Jail on $1,000 bond.

In the course of the hearing, 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 Facet on Tuesday. The mother has a sound firearm homeowners identification card.

Based on police, the backpack was in the boy's classroom when, just earlier than 10 a.m. on Tuesday, the gun discharged. The Chicago Solar-Occasions reported that prosecutors stated throughout the listening to that the bullet ricocheted off the floor and grazed the child's abdomen. The child was taken to a hospital in good condition, police said.

In an e mail to oldsters, the varsity's principal said the bullet "brought on some debris to ricochet in your child’s classroom, which hit a member of our college group and brought about minor scrapes.” The varsity didn't reply to a request for touch upon Wednesday.

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

The woman's legal professional, Rodger Clarke, acknowledged that the gun should have been locked up and never just placed below the mattress. But, he stated, “This wasn't one thing she planned 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, however it is a supremely negligent act,” he mentioned.

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