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 chance discharged in school, injuring a 7-year-old classmate

ByThe Associated Press

18 May 2022, 23:06

• 2 min learn

CHICAGO -- A Chicago mom has been charged with child 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 lady appeared in court on Wednesday on three misdemeanor baby endangerment counts. A judge ordered her launch from Cook dinner County Jail on $1,000 bond.

In the course of the listening to, prosecutors alleged that the woman's 8-year-old son found the gun beneath her bed and took it to Walt Disney Magnet Faculty on town’s North Facet on Tuesday. The mother has a valid firearm house owners identification card.

In keeping with police, the backpack was in the boy's classroom when, just before 10 a.m. on Tuesday, the gun discharged. The Chicago Solar-Instances reported that prosecutors mentioned through the listening to that the bullet ricocheted off the floor and grazed the kid's stomach. The kid was taken to a hospital in good condition, police said.

In an e mail to parents, the college's principal stated the bullet "precipitated some particles to ricochet in your child’s classroom, which hit a member of our school group and precipitated minor scrapes.” The varsity didn't reply to a request for touch upon Wednesday.

A instructor then grabbed the backpack and gave it to safety officers who found a Glock 19 handgun inside, prosecutors stated in the course of the hearing.

The girl's attorney, Rodger Clarke, acknowledged that the gun ought to have been locked up and not simply placed beneath the bed. However, he mentioned, “This wasn't one thing she deliberate or something she did on her own volition.”

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

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

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