Gun in 8-year-old’s backpack goes off at college, 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 May 2022, 23:06

• 2 min learn

CHICAGO -- A Chicago mother has been charged with youngster endangerment after a gun in her second grader's backpack unintentionally discharged in school, injuring a 7-year-old classmate, police stated Wednesday.

The 28-year-old woman appeared in court docket on Wednesday on three misdemeanor youngster endangerment counts. A judge ordered her launch from Prepare dinner County Jail on $1,000 bond.

Through 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 School on the town’s North Aspect on Tuesday. The mother has a sound firearm house owners identification card.

In keeping with police, the backpack was in the boy's classroom when, simply before 10 a.m. on Tuesday, the gun discharged. The Chicago Solar-Times reported that prosecutors stated throughout 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 stated.

In an e-mail to oldsters, the school's principal stated the bullet "induced some debris to ricochet in your youngster’s classroom, which hit a member of our faculty community and brought on minor scrapes.” The college did not respond to a request for touch upon Wednesday.

A instructor then grabbed the backpack and gave it to security officers who discovered a Glock 19 handgun inside, prosecutors said during the listening to.

The girl's legal professional, Rodger Clarke, acknowledged that the gun ought to have been locked up and never simply positioned under the mattress. But, he said, “This wasn't something she deliberate or one thing she did on her personal volition.”

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

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

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