Gun in 8-year-old’s backpack goes off at school, mom 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 Related Press

18 May 2022, 23:06

• 2 min learn

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

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

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

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

In an e-mail to oldsters, the college's principal stated the bullet "induced some debris to ricochet in your youngster’s classroom, which hit a member of our college neighborhood and induced minor scrapes.” The school didn't reply to a request for comment on Wednesday.

A trainer then grabbed the backpack and gave it to security officers who discovered a Glock 19 handgun inside, prosecutors mentioned in the course of the listening to.

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

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

“This may occasionally not have been an intentional act, however it's a supremely negligent act,” he stated.

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