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

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

ByThe Related Press

18 Could 2022, 23:06

• 2 min learn

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

The 28-year-old woman appeared in court docket on Wednesday on three misdemeanor child endangerment counts. A decide ordered her release from Cook County Jail on $1,000 bond.

During the listening to, 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 Aspect on Tuesday. The mother has a valid 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 Solar-Instances reported that prosecutors stated throughout the listening to that the bullet ricocheted off the floor and grazed the child's abdomen. The kid was taken to a hospital in good condition, police said.

In an e-mail to parents, the college's principal stated the bullet "brought on some particles to ricochet in your youngster’s classroom, which hit a member of our college group and induced minor scrapes.” The college did not respond to a request for touch upon Wednesday.

A instructor then grabbed the backpack and gave it to security officers who discovered a Glock 19 handgun inside, prosecutors said through the listening to.

The girl's legal professional, Rodger Clarke, acknowledged that the gun ought to have been locked up and never just positioned below the mattress. But, he mentioned, “This wasn't one thing she deliberate or one thing she did on her personal volition.”

Cook dinner County Judge 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 stated.

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