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

Chicago police say a mother has been charged with little one 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 read

CHICAGO -- A Chicago mom has been charged with baby endangerment after a gun in her second grader's backpack by accident discharged in school, injuring a 7-year-old classmate, police mentioned Wednesday.

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

In the course of the hearing, prosecutors alleged that the girl's 8-year-old son found the gun underneath her bed and took it to Walt Disney Magnet College on town’s North Aspect on Tuesday. The mother has a legitimate 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 Sun-Occasions reported that prosecutors mentioned through the listening to that the bullet ricocheted off the ground and grazed the child's stomach. The child was taken to a hospital in good situation, police stated.

In an email to folks, the college's principal mentioned the bullet "brought on some debris to ricochet in your baby’s classroom, which hit a member of our faculty neighborhood and triggered minor scrapes.” The college did not 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 mentioned during the listening to.

The girl's lawyer, Rodger Clarke, acknowledged that the gun ought to have been locked up and not simply placed under the mattress. However, he said, “This wasn't something she deliberate or something she did on her own volition.”

Prepare dinner County Decide 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're inches away, presumably centimeters away, from a very totally different case and a very totally different tragedy.”