Gun in 8-year-old’s backpack goes off at college, 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 May 2022, 23:06

• 2 min read

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

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

Throughout the hearing, prosecutors alleged that the lady's 8-year-old son found the gun underneath her bed and took it to Walt Disney Magnet Faculty on town’s North Side on Tuesday. The mom has a sound firearm homeowners identification card.

In response to police, the backpack was in the boy's classroom when, just before 10 a.m. on Tuesday, the gun discharged. The Chicago Sun-Occasions reported that prosecutors said during the hearing that the bullet ricocheted off the floor and grazed the kid's abdomen. The child was taken to a hospital in good situation, police stated.

In an e mail to folks, the college's principal mentioned the bullet "brought about some particles to ricochet in your little one’s classroom, which hit a member of our school neighborhood and brought about minor scrapes.” The school didn't respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.

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

The woman's attorney, Rodger Clarke, acknowledged that the gun should have been locked up and not simply positioned below the bed. However, he mentioned, “This wasn't something she planned or something she did on her own volition.”

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

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

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