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 unintentionally 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 youngster 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 woman appeared in court on Wednesday on three misdemeanor baby endangerment counts. A choose ordered her release from Cook 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 Facet on Tuesday. The mother has a sound firearm owners identification card.

Based on police, the backpack was in the boy's classroom when, just before 10 a.m. on Tuesday, the gun discharged. The Chicago Solar-Times reported that prosecutors stated during the hearing that the bullet ricocheted off the ground and grazed the kid's stomach. The kid was taken to a hospital in good condition, police stated.

In an electronic mail to parents, the college's principal stated the bullet "triggered some debris to ricochet in your little one’s classroom, which hit a member of our college neighborhood and prompted minor scrapes.” The college did not respond to a request for touch upon Wednesday.

A instructor then grabbed the backpack and gave it to safety officers who found a Glock 19 handgun inside, prosecutors stated throughout the hearing.

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

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

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

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