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

Chicago police say a mom has been charged with baby 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 read

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

The 28-year-old girl appeared in court docket on Wednesday on three misdemeanor baby endangerment counts. A choose ordered her launch 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 mattress and took it to Walt Disney Magnet School on the city’s North Side on Tuesday. The mom has a valid firearm owners identification card.

Based on police, the backpack was within the boy's classroom when, just earlier than 10 a.m. on Tuesday, the gun discharged. The Chicago Sun-Occasions reported that prosecutors stated through the hearing that the bullet ricocheted off the floor and grazed the kid's abdomen. The kid was taken to a hospital in good condition, police stated.

In an email to folks, the college's principal mentioned the bullet "induced some debris to ricochet in your baby’s classroom, which hit a member of our school community and brought about minor scrapes.” The college did not respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.

A instructor then grabbed the backpack and gave it to safety officers who found a Glock 19 handgun inside, prosecutors stated in the course of the hearing.

The lady's attorney, Rodger Clarke, acknowledged that the gun ought to have been locked up and never simply positioned underneath the bed. But, he mentioned, “This wasn't one thing she deliberate or something she did on her personal volition.”

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

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

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