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

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

ByThe Associated Press

18 May 2022, 23:06

• 2 min read

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

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

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

According to police, the backpack was within the boy's classroom when, simply before 10 a.m. on Tuesday, the gun discharged. The Chicago Solar-Occasions reported that prosecutors said in the course of the listening to that the bullet ricocheted off the ground and grazed the kid's stomach. The kid was taken to a hospital in good condition, police stated.

In an e-mail to parents, the college's principal said the bullet "precipitated some debris to ricochet in your baby’s classroom, which hit a member of our school community and brought on minor scrapes.” The school didn't reply to a request for touch upon Wednesday.

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

The woman's lawyer, Rodger Clarke, acknowledged that the gun should have been locked up and never simply placed beneath the bed. But, he stated, “This wasn't something she deliberate or one thing she did on her own volition.”

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

“This may occasionally not have been an intentional act, however it is a supremely negligent act,” he mentioned.

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