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

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

ByThe Associated Press

18 Could 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 unintentionally discharged at college, 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.

Through the listening to, prosecutors alleged that the woman's 8-year-old son discovered the gun beneath her mattress and took it to Walt Disney Magnet College on town’s North Aspect on Tuesday. The mother has a sound firearm house owners identification card.

Based on police, the backpack was in the boy's classroom when, simply before 10 a.m. on Tuesday, the gun discharged. The Chicago Sun-Instances reported that prosecutors stated in the course of the hearing that the bullet ricocheted off the ground and grazed the kid's stomach. The kid was taken to a hospital in good situation, police mentioned.

In an electronic mail to oldsters, the school's principal said the bullet "brought about some debris to ricochet in your child’s classroom, which hit a member of our school group and caused minor scrapes.” The varsity didn't reply to a request for touch upon Wednesday.

A teacher then grabbed the backpack and gave it to safety officers who discovered a Glock 19 handgun inside, prosecutors stated during the hearing.

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

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

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

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