Gun Fired Through 8-Year-Old's Backpack At A Chicago Elementary School

Active shooter taking gun in classroom ready for mass school shooting.

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Walt Disney Magnet School in Buena Park was in session as normal on Tuesday morning, when all of a sudden a gun went off through an 8-year-olds backpack, grazing a 7-year-old in the abdomen who was sitting near by.

According to FOX32, Tatanina Kelly, the 8-year-old's mother, was referred to as "supremely negligent" in court by Judge Michael Hogan.

"We are inches away, possibly centimeters away, from a very different case and a very different tragedy," Judge Hogan shared in court.

Kelly explained that the gun was under her bed and her child must have crawled to get it and put it in the backpack. FOX32 mentioned that the gun was a 9mm Glock 19 handgun. According to Chicago police, the bullet ricocheted off of the ground before grazing the 7-year-old. After the gun went off, a teacher immediately took the backpack from the student and handed it over to the school's security.

"This wasn’t something she planned or something she did of her own volition," Rodger Clarke, Kelly's attorney explained to Judge Hogan during the hearing. "How the kid knew there was a gun under the bed is beyond me. … It’s not like she went out and did something purposefully that violated that law."

Clarke also mentioned that Kelly probably should have had the gun locked up somewhere in the house that was out of the child's reach. Kelly was charged with three separate misdemeanor charges and has to pay $1,000 to be released from jail until her next court date of May 24.


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