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

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

ByThe Related Press

18 Might 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 unintentionally discharged at college, injuring a 7-year-old classmate, police stated Wednesday.

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

Throughout the hearing, prosecutors alleged that the woman's 8-year-old son found the gun underneath her mattress and took it to Walt Disney Magnet Faculty on town’s North Aspect on Tuesday. The mom has a legitimate firearm owners identification card.

Based on police, the backpack was in the boy's classroom when, simply earlier than 10 a.m. on Tuesday, the gun discharged. The Chicago Solar-Times reported that prosecutors stated through the listening to that the bullet ricocheted off the ground and grazed the kid's abdomen. The kid was taken to a hospital in good condition, police said.

In an e-mail to oldsters, the college's principal stated the bullet "prompted some debris to ricochet in your little one’s classroom, which hit a member of our faculty group and brought about minor scrapes.” The varsity did not respond 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 in the course of the listening to.

The girl's legal professional, Rodger Clarke, acknowledged that the gun should have been locked up and not just placed beneath the bed. However, he said, “This wasn't something she planned or something she did on her own volition.”

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

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

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