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

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

ByThe Related Press

18 Could 2022, 23:06

• 2 min learn

CHICAGO -- A Chicago mom 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, police mentioned Wednesday.

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

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

In keeping with police, the backpack was within the boy's classroom when, just earlier than 10 a.m. on Tuesday, the gun discharged. The Chicago Solar-Times reported that prosecutors mentioned during 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 mentioned.

In an email to parents, the varsity's principal stated the bullet "triggered some debris to ricochet in your little one’s classroom, which hit a member of our school group and prompted minor scrapes.” The school didn't respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.

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

The woman's lawyer, Rodger Clarke, acknowledged that the gun should have been locked up and not just positioned under the bed. However, he mentioned, “This wasn't one thing she deliberate or one thing she did on her personal volition.”

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

“This will not have been an intentional act, however it's a supremely negligent act,” he mentioned.

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