Gun in 8-year-old’s backpack goes off in 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 accident discharged at college, 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 accidentally discharged in school, injuring a 7-year-old classmate, police mentioned Wednesday.

The 28-year-old girl appeared in court on Wednesday on three misdemeanor little one endangerment counts. A judge ordered her launch from Prepare dinner County Jail on $1,000 bond.

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

In line with police, the backpack was within the boy's classroom when, just before 10 a.m. on Tuesday, the gun discharged. The Chicago Sun-Occasions reported that prosecutors stated during the listening to that the bullet ricocheted off the floor and grazed the kid's abdomen. The child was taken to a hospital in good condition, police stated.

In an e-mail to parents, the college's principal mentioned the bullet "precipitated some particles to ricochet in your little one’s classroom, which hit a member of our faculty group and triggered minor scrapes.” The college did not respond to a request for touch upon Wednesday.

A instructor then grabbed the backpack and gave it to safety officers who discovered a Glock 19 handgun inside, prosecutors mentioned throughout the hearing.

The lady's legal professional, Rodger Clarke, acknowledged that the gun should have been locked up and never just placed under the bed. But, he mentioned, “This wasn't one thing 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, but it is a supremely negligent act,” he stated.

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