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

Chicago police say a mom has been charged with little one endangerment after a gun in her second grader’s backpack unintentionally discharged at college, 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 youngster endangerment after a gun in her second grader's backpack by chance discharged in school, injuring a 7-year-old classmate, police stated Wednesday.

The 28-year-old lady appeared in courtroom on Wednesday on three misdemeanor little one endangerment counts. A decide ordered her launch from Cook dinner County Jail on $1,000 bond.

In the course of 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 mom 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-Times reported that prosecutors mentioned in the course of 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 email to parents, the college's principal mentioned the bullet "brought on some debris to ricochet in your child’s classroom, which hit a member of our college neighborhood and precipitated minor scrapes.” The school didn't reply to a request for touch upon Wednesday.

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

The woman's lawyer, 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 deliberate or one thing she did on her own volition.”

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

“This will 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 very completely different tragedy.”