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

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

ByThe Related Press

18 May 2022, 23:06

• 2 min read

CHICAGO -- A Chicago mother has been charged with baby 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 girl appeared in court on Wednesday on three misdemeanor youngster endangerment counts. A decide ordered her release from Cook County Jail on $1,000 bond.

During the listening to, prosecutors alleged that the woman's 8-year-old son found the gun underneath her bed and took it to Walt Disney Magnet College on the town’s North Aspect on Tuesday. The mother has a valid firearm homeowners identification card.

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

In an e-mail to oldsters, the college's principal stated the bullet "brought about some particles to ricochet in your little one’s classroom, which hit a member of our school neighborhood and brought about minor scrapes.” The school did not reply to a request for touch upon Wednesday.

A trainer then grabbed the backpack and gave it to security officers who found a Glock 19 handgun inside, prosecutors mentioned through the listening to.

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

Cook dinner County Judge 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 said.

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