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

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

ByThe Related Press

18 Could 2022, 23:06

• 2 min read

CHICAGO -- A Chicago mother has been charged with child 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 girl appeared in courtroom on Wednesday on three misdemeanor little one endangerment counts. A choose ordered her release from Cook 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 School on the city’s North Aspect on Tuesday. The mother has a valid firearm house owners identification card.

In line with police, the backpack was within the boy's classroom when, just before 10 a.m. on Tuesday, the gun discharged. The Chicago Sun-Occasions reported that prosecutors stated through the hearing that the bullet ricocheted off the ground and grazed the kid's abdomen. The child was taken to a hospital in good situation, police mentioned.

In an e-mail to oldsters, the college's principal stated the bullet "caused some debris to ricochet in your little one’s classroom, which hit a member of our faculty group and precipitated minor scrapes.” The school didn't respond to a request for touch upon Wednesday.

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

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

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

“This will not have been an intentional act, however it is a supremely negligent act,” he said.

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