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

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

ByThe Associated Press

18 Might 2022, 23:06

• 2 min learn

CHICAGO -- A Chicago mother 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 stated Wednesday.

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

During the listening to, prosecutors alleged that the lady's 8-year-old son found 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.

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

In an email to oldsters, the college's principal said the bullet "caused some debris to ricochet in your little one’s classroom, which hit a member of our school group and precipitated minor scrapes.” The varsity did not respond to a request for touch upon Wednesday.

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

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

Cook 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 said.

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