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 school, injuring a 7-year-old classmate

ByThe Related Press

18 Could 2022, 23:06

• 2 min read

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

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

Through the hearing, prosecutors alleged that the woman's 8-year-old son found the gun underneath her mattress and took it to Walt Disney Magnet Faculty on the town’s North Facet on Tuesday. The mother has a sound firearm owners identification card.

Based on police, the backpack was within the boy's classroom when, just earlier than 10 a.m. on Tuesday, the gun discharged. The Chicago Sun-Instances reported that prosecutors mentioned through the listening to that the bullet ricocheted off the ground and grazed the child's abdomen. The child was taken to a hospital in good condition, police stated.

In an electronic mail to parents, the varsity's principal stated the bullet "induced some particles to ricochet in your child’s classroom, which hit a member of our college community and prompted minor scrapes.” The college didn't reply to a request for comment on Wednesday.

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

The girl's attorney, Rodger Clarke, acknowledged that the gun ought to have been locked up and not simply placed beneath the mattress. But, he stated, “This wasn't one thing she deliberate or something she did on her personal volition.”

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

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

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