A Chicago mom has been charged with youngster 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 girl appeared in court docket on Wednesday on three misdemeanor youngster endangerment counts. A decide ordered her launch from Cook dinner County Jail on $1,000 bond.
In the course of the listening to, prosecutors alleged that the lady’s 8-year-old son discovered the gun beneath her mattress and took it to Walt Disney Magnet College on town’s North Aspect on Tuesday. The mom has a sound firearm house owners identification card.
In response to police, the backpack was within the boy’s classroom when, simply earlier than 10 a.m. on Tuesday, the gun discharged. The Chicago Solar-Instances reported that prosecutors stated 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 situation, police stated.
In an e mail to folks, the college’s principal stated the bullet “precipitated some particles to ricochet in your youngster’s classroom, which hit a member of our college group and precipitated minor scrapes.” The college didn’t reply to a request for touch upon Wednesday.
A instructor then grabbed the backpack and gave it to safety officers who discovered a Glock 19 handgun inside, prosecutors stated in the course of the listening to.
The lady’s lawyer, Rodger Clarke, acknowledged that the gun ought to have been locked up and never simply positioned underneath the mattress. However, he stated, “This wasn’t one thing she deliberate or one thing she did on her personal volition.”
Cook dinner County Choose 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 stated.
He continued: “We’re inches away, probably centimeters away, from a really totally different case and a really totally different tragedy.”
