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

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

ByThe Associated Press

18 Could 2022, 23:06

• 2 min learn

CHICAGO -- A Chicago mom has been charged with baby endangerment after a gun in her second grader's backpack by chance discharged in school, injuring a 7-year-old classmate, police stated Wednesday.

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

During the listening to, prosecutors alleged that the girl's 8-year-old son found the gun underneath her bed and took it to Walt Disney Magnet School on the town’s North Side on Tuesday. The mother has a sound 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-Occasions reported that prosecutors stated through the hearing that the bullet ricocheted off the floor and grazed the child's stomach. 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 "induced some particles to ricochet in your youngster’s classroom, which hit a member of our faculty community and induced minor scrapes.” The varsity did not reply to a request for touch upon Wednesday.

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

The lady's lawyer, Rodger Clarke, acknowledged that the gun ought to have been locked up and never simply positioned under the mattress. But, he said, “This wasn't something she deliberate or one thing she did on her own volition.”

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

“This will not have been an intentional act, however it's a supremely negligent act,” he mentioned.

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