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 by chance discharged at college, injuring a 7-year-old classmate

ByThe Related Press

18 Might 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 by chance discharged at 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 decide ordered her launch 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 beneath her mattress and took it to Walt Disney Magnet College on the town’s North Facet on Tuesday. The mom has a valid firearm owners identification card.

According to 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 stated during the listening to that the bullet ricocheted off the ground and grazed the child's abdomen. The kid was taken to a hospital in good situation, police mentioned.

In an email to folks, the school's principal mentioned the bullet "triggered some debris to ricochet in your little one’s classroom, which hit a member of our college community and triggered minor scrapes.” The college didn't respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.

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

The lady's lawyer, Rodger Clarke, acknowledged that the gun ought to have been locked up and not simply positioned under the bed. However, he stated, “This wasn't one thing she planned or one thing she did on her own volition.”

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

“This will not have been an intentional act, but it's a supremely negligent act,” he stated.

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