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

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

ByThe Associated Press

18 May 2022, 23:06

• 2 min learn

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

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

Through the listening to, prosecutors alleged that the woman's 8-year-old son found the gun beneath her bed and took it to Walt Disney Magnet School on town’s North Side on Tuesday. The mom has a sound firearm owners identification card.

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

In an email to folks, the varsity's principal stated the bullet "brought on some particles to ricochet in your baby’s classroom, which hit a member of our school group and brought about minor scrapes.” The varsity did not respond to a request for touch upon Wednesday.

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

The woman's lawyer, Rodger Clarke, acknowledged that the gun should have been locked up and not simply placed under the mattress. However, he said, “This wasn't one thing she deliberate or something she did on her own volition.”

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

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

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