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

Chicago police say a mom 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 Could 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 unintentionally discharged at college, injuring a 7-year-old classmate, police said Wednesday.

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

During the hearing, prosecutors alleged that the girl's 8-year-old son found the gun underneath her bed and took it to Walt Disney Magnet College on the city’s North Facet on Tuesday. The mother has a legitimate firearm house owners identification card.

In response to police, the backpack was within the boy's classroom when, simply before 10 a.m. on Tuesday, the gun discharged. The Chicago Solar-Occasions reported that prosecutors said during the hearing that the bullet ricocheted off the ground and grazed the kid's stomach. The kid was taken to a hospital in good condition, police said.

In an e-mail to folks, the varsity's principal mentioned the bullet "prompted some particles to ricochet in your little one’s classroom, which hit a member of our school group and caused minor scrapes.” The school didn't 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 said during the listening to.

The girl's attorney, Rodger Clarke, acknowledged that the gun should have been locked up and not simply positioned under the bed. But, he mentioned, “This wasn't one thing she deliberate or one thing she did on her own volition.”

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

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

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