Gun in 8-year-old’s backpack goes off at college, mom 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 in school, injuring a 7-year-old classmate

ByThe Related Press

18 Might 2022, 23:06

• 2 min read

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

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

In the course of the hearing, prosecutors alleged that the woman's 8-year-old son discovered the gun beneath her mattress and took it to Walt Disney Magnet College on town’s North Side on Tuesday. The mother has a legitimate firearm 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-Times reported that prosecutors said in the course of the listening to that the bullet ricocheted off the ground and grazed the kid's stomach. The kid was taken to a hospital in good condition, police mentioned.

In an electronic mail to oldsters, the college's principal mentioned the bullet "brought on some particles to ricochet in your little one’s classroom, which hit a member of our college group and induced minor scrapes.” The varsity did not respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.

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

The lady's lawyer, Rodger Clarke, acknowledged that the gun ought to have been locked up and not just positioned beneath the mattress. However, he stated, “This wasn't one thing she deliberate or something she did on her own volition.”

Cook County Decide 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, probably centimeters away, from a very totally different case and a really totally different tragedy.”