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

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

ByThe Related Press

18 May 2022, 23:06

• 2 min learn

CHICAGO -- A Chicago mother has been charged with child endangerment after a gun in her second grader's backpack by chance discharged at college, injuring a 7-year-old classmate, police mentioned Wednesday.

The 28-year-old lady appeared in courtroom on Wednesday on three misdemeanor youngster endangerment counts. A judge ordered her release from Cook County Jail on $1,000 bond.

Throughout the listening to, prosecutors alleged that the girl's 8-year-old son discovered the gun underneath her bed and took it to Walt Disney Magnet School on town’s North Side on Tuesday. The mom has a legitimate firearm owners identification card.

In accordance with police, the backpack was in the boy's classroom when, just before 10 a.m. on Tuesday, the gun discharged. The Chicago Solar-Instances reported that prosecutors mentioned through the hearing that the bullet ricocheted off the floor and grazed the child's stomach. The child was taken to a hospital in good condition, police stated.

In an e mail to oldsters, the varsity's principal mentioned the bullet "brought on some debris to ricochet in your baby’s classroom, which hit a member of our faculty community and brought about minor scrapes.” The school didn't reply to a request for comment on Wednesday.

A trainer then grabbed the backpack and gave it to security officers who found a Glock 19 handgun inside, prosecutors said in the course of the listening to.

The girl's legal professional, Rodger Clarke, acknowledged that the gun ought to have been locked up and not just positioned underneath the bed. However, he stated, “This wasn't one thing she deliberate or one thing she did on her own volition.”

Prepare dinner County Choose Michael Hogan was not impressed by that argument.

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

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