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

Chicago police say a mom has been charged with child endangerment after a gun in her second grader’s backpack by accident discharged in school, injuring a 7-year-old classmate

ByThe Related Press

18 Might 2022, 23:06

• 2 min learn

CHICAGO -- A Chicago mom 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, police stated Wednesday.

The 28-year-old girl appeared in court on Wednesday on three misdemeanor child 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 found the gun underneath her bed and took it to Walt Disney Magnet Faculty on town’s North Aspect on Tuesday. The mother has a sound 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-Times reported that prosecutors mentioned in the course of the hearing that the bullet ricocheted off the floor and grazed the kid's abdomen. The kid was taken to a hospital in good situation, police stated.

In an electronic mail to folks, the college's principal said the bullet "caused some debris to ricochet in your baby’s classroom, which hit a member of our college neighborhood and induced minor scrapes.” The college didn't respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.

A teacher then grabbed the backpack and gave it to safety officers who discovered a Glock 19 handgun inside, prosecutors mentioned through the listening to.

The girl's lawyer, Rodger Clarke, acknowledged that the gun should have been locked up and never simply positioned below the bed. But, he said, “This wasn't one thing she deliberate or something she did on her own volition.”

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

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

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