A Chicago mother has been charged with child endangerment after a gun in her second grader’s backpack accidentally discharged at school, injuring a 7-year-old classmate, police said Wednesday.
The 28-year-old woman appeared in court on Wednesday on three misdemeanor child endangerment counts. A judge ordered her release from Cook County Jail on $1,000 bond.
During the hearing, prosecutors alleged that the woman’s 8-year-old son found the gun underneath her bed and took it to Walt Disney Magnet School on the city’s North Side on Tuesday. The mother has a valid firearm owners identification card.
According to police, the backpack was in the boy’s classroom when, just before 10 a.m. on Tuesday, the gun discharged. The Chicago Sun-Times reported that prosecutors said during the hearing that the bullet ricocheted off the floor and grazed the child’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 “caused some debris to ricochet in your child’s classroom, which hit a member of our school community and caused minor scrapes.” The school did not respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.
A teacher then grabbed the backpack and gave it to security officers who found a Glock 19 handgun inside, prosecutors said during the hearing.
The woman’s attorney, Rodger Clarke, acknowledged that the gun should have been locked up and not just placed under the bed. But, he said, “This wasn’t something she planned or something she did on her own volition.”
Cook County Judge Michael Hogan was not impressed by that argument.
“This may not have been an intentional act, but it is a supremely negligent act,” he said.
He continued: “We are inches away, possibly centimeters away, from a very different case and a very different tragedy.”
That is why 8 yr olds should have lessons and guidance at a shooting range with an NRA instructor………Thank GOD I had my Dad who taught me with a rifle at the age of 8………Have been a skeet shooter for many years, and made sure that all my kids had instructions from an NRA Instructor………….There has never been anyone in my family that has ever mis-used a rifle/gun, and never shot anyone even at the age of 8……Too bad there are citizens out there that are anti-gun and find out that NOT KNOWING about GUN SAFETY and its merits of learning………..
Folks, it is simple , More Guns = more gun deaths and accidents.
If ever eventually we get to the point that we realize we are no longer in the XVIII century and there are no natives or redcoats hunting for us and we are not going to join the Colonial Militia and that most problems among people can be solved by talking and guns do not solve problems, maybe we can grow out this bang-bang childish fetish with guns.
Take this from a CWL holder and gun owner. MOST people should NOT have access to firearms.
You are wrong. Although there are no redcoats, but there are red states. We live in a country where crimes and drugs risen 1000 folds and we need protection. The police won’t do it because we defund thier ability to protect and serves. So, I’ll say the more guns the better.
Clearly a “wishful thinking” democrat. It is precisely the democrats that we need protection from. The Constitution is absolutely clear. ….The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
Another idiot parent!!!
It seems from reading this article the Gun was responsible for the shot! Where in this article does it tell who pulled the trigger, purposely or accidentally? We all should know by now, although some still don’t. a gun is an inanimate object completely unable to cause itself to pull the trigger. This article is a biased writing to say the least!