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

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

ByThe Associated Press

18 Could 2022, 23:06

• 2 min learn

CHICAGO -- A Chicago mother 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 said Wednesday.

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

During the hearing, prosecutors alleged that the girl's 8-year-old son discovered the gun underneath her mattress and took it to Walt Disney Magnet College on town’s North Side on Tuesday. The mother has a sound firearm owners identification card.

In line with police, the backpack was within the boy's classroom when, simply earlier than 10 a.m. on Tuesday, the gun discharged. The Chicago Sun-Instances reported that prosecutors said in the course of the listening to that the bullet ricocheted off the ground and grazed the child's stomach. The kid was taken to a hospital in good condition, police stated.

In an email to parents, the college's principal said the bullet "triggered some debris to ricochet in your baby’s classroom, which hit a member of our faculty neighborhood and caused minor scrapes.” The school 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 said through the hearing.

The woman's legal professional, Rodger Clarke, acknowledged that the gun ought to have been locked up and never just placed under the bed. However, he stated, “This wasn't something she deliberate or one thing she did on her personal volition.”

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

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

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