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

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

ByThe Related Press

18 May 2022, 23:06

• 2 min learn

CHICAGO -- A Chicago mom has been charged with youngster endangerment after a gun in her second grader's backpack unintentionally discharged at school, injuring a 7-year-old classmate, police said Wednesday.

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

In the course of the listening to, prosecutors alleged that the lady's 8-year-old son discovered the gun beneath her bed and took it to Walt Disney Magnet Faculty on the town’s North Side on Tuesday. The mom has a sound firearm house owners identification card.

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

In an e mail to folks, the varsity's principal stated the bullet "brought on some particles to ricochet in your youngster’s classroom, which hit a member of our faculty neighborhood and caused minor scrapes.” The college didn't respond to a request for touch upon Wednesday.

A trainer then grabbed the backpack and gave it to safety officers who found a Glock 19 handgun inside, prosecutors said during the listening to.

The woman's lawyer, Rodger Clarke, acknowledged that the gun ought to have been locked up and never just placed under the bed. However, he mentioned, “This wasn't something she deliberate or something she did on her own volition.”

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

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

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