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

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

ByThe Related 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 accidentally discharged in school, injuring a 7-year-old classmate, police said Wednesday.

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

Throughout the hearing, prosecutors alleged that the lady's 8-year-old son discovered the gun underneath her mattress and took it to Walt Disney Magnet School on the town’s North Aspect on Tuesday. The mother has a legitimate firearm homeowners identification card.

According to police, the backpack was in the boy's classroom when, just earlier than 10 a.m. on Tuesday, the gun discharged. The Chicago Sun-Instances reported that prosecutors said in the course of the listening to that the bullet ricocheted off the ground and grazed the kid's abdomen. The child was taken to a hospital in good condition, police said.

In an email to parents, the school's principal said the bullet "brought about some particles to ricochet in your baby’s classroom, which hit a member of our college community and prompted minor scrapes.” The college didn't respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.

A instructor then grabbed the backpack and gave it to safety officers who discovered a Glock 19 handgun inside, prosecutors mentioned through the listening to.

The girl's attorney, Rodger Clarke, acknowledged that the gun ought to have been locked up and never just positioned beneath the mattress. But, he mentioned, “This wasn't one thing she deliberate or something she did on her own volition.”

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

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

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