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

Chicago police say a mother has been charged with baby 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 May 2022, 23:06

• 2 min learn

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

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

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

In keeping with police, the backpack was within the boy's classroom when, simply before 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 mentioned.

In an email to folks, the college's principal stated the bullet "precipitated some debris to ricochet in your youngster’s classroom, which hit a member of our school community and caused minor scrapes.” The college did not respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.

A instructor then grabbed the backpack and gave it to safety officers who discovered a Glock 19 handgun inside, prosecutors said throughout the listening to.

The woman's attorney, Rodger Clarke, acknowledged that the gun ought to have been locked up and never just placed underneath the bed. However, he said, “This wasn't one thing she deliberate or one thing she did on her own volition.”

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

“This may increasingly not have been an intentional act, however it is a supremely negligent act,” he mentioned.

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