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

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

ByThe Associated Press

18 May 2022, 23:06

• 2 min learn

CHICAGO -- A Chicago mom has been charged with baby endangerment after a gun in her second grader's backpack unintentionally discharged at school, injuring a 7-year-old classmate, police said Wednesday.

The 28-year-old lady appeared in courtroom on Wednesday on three misdemeanor child endangerment counts. A judge ordered her release from Prepare dinner County Jail on $1,000 bond.

In the course of the hearing, prosecutors alleged that the woman's 8-year-old son found the gun underneath her mattress and took it to Walt Disney Magnet School on town’s North Side on Tuesday. The mom has a legitimate firearm owners identification card.

In accordance with police, the backpack was within the boy's classroom when, just before 10 a.m. on Tuesday, the gun discharged. The Chicago Solar-Times reported that prosecutors stated throughout the listening to that the bullet ricocheted off the ground and grazed the child's stomach. The kid was taken to a hospital in good situation, police mentioned.

In an email to parents, the college's principal mentioned the bullet "triggered some debris to ricochet in your child’s classroom, which hit a member of our college community and caused minor scrapes.” The school didn't respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.

A instructor then grabbed the backpack and gave it to safety officers who found a Glock 19 handgun inside, prosecutors said throughout the listening to.

The girl's lawyer, Rodger Clarke, acknowledged that the gun ought to have been locked up and not simply placed under the mattress. But, he said, “This wasn't one thing she deliberate or one thing she did on her own volition.”

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

“This will likely 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 totally different tragedy.”