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

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

ByThe Related Press

18 May 2022, 23:06

• 2 min learn

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

The 28-year-old girl appeared in courtroom on Wednesday on three misdemeanor baby endangerment counts. A choose ordered her release from Cook dinner County Jail on $1,000 bond.

Through the hearing, prosecutors alleged that the lady's 8-year-old son found the gun underneath her mattress and took it to Walt Disney Magnet School on town’s North Side on Tuesday. The mother has a valid firearm owners identification card.

In keeping with police, the backpack was in the boy's classroom when, just earlier than 10 a.m. on Tuesday, the gun discharged. The Chicago Sun-Occasions reported that prosecutors mentioned in the course of the hearing that the bullet ricocheted off the ground and grazed the child's stomach. The kid was taken to a hospital in good situation, police said.

In an email to oldsters, the college's principal said the bullet "brought about some debris to ricochet in your baby’s classroom, which hit a member of our college group and brought on minor scrapes.” The school didn't respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.

A trainer 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 should have been locked up and never just placed underneath the mattress. However, he mentioned, “This wasn't one thing she deliberate or something she did on her own volition.”

Prepare dinner County Judge Michael Hogan was not impressed by that argument.

“This will likely 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 completely different case and a really totally different tragedy.”