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

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

ByThe Related Press

18 Could 2022, 23:06

• 2 min learn

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

The 28-year-old lady appeared in court docket on Wednesday on three misdemeanor youngster endangerment counts. A choose ordered her release from Cook County Jail on $1,000 bond.

Through the hearing, prosecutors alleged that the girl's 8-year-old son found the gun beneath her mattress and took it to Walt Disney Magnet Faculty on the city’s North Side on Tuesday. The mom has a sound firearm house owners identification card.

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

In an electronic mail to parents, the school's principal mentioned the bullet "prompted some debris to ricochet in your little one’s classroom, which hit a member of our school community and precipitated minor scrapes.” The varsity did not reply to a request for touch upon Wednesday.

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

The lady's attorney, Rodger Clarke, acknowledged that the gun should have been locked up and not just placed under the mattress. But, he mentioned, “This wasn't one thing she deliberate or one thing she did on her personal volition.”

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

“This will likely not have been an intentional act, but it is a supremely negligent act,” he mentioned.

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