A girl was taken to a hospital for evaluation, and a teacher is being praised for springing into action when other students saw their classmate carrying a gun in her hand at a suburban school Wednesday morning.
Meanwhile, the girl’s mother, a Cook County corrections officer, has been charged with a misdemeanor count of child endangerment, and has been de-deputized as an investigation into the incident continues.
The incident occurred Wednesday morning as classes were getting underway at Richton Park’s Neil Armstrong Elementary.
Officials say a 10-year-old girl, believed to be in the fourth grade, was in the hallway when other students noticed that she was carrying a gun in her hand.
Students alerted a teacher, and that educator was able to recover the gun safely. That teacher is now being praised for her quick thinking.
“The teacher did an exceptional job in how she handled the situation,” Richton Park Police Chief Demitrous Cook said. “She put her own self in danger for the safety of the other kids.”
Officers were summoned to the school and conducted a sweep of the building, placing the facility on lockdown. The girl was taken to a nearby hospital for an evaluation, police said.
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During the investigation, police determined that the weapon belonged to the girl’s mother. She is now facing a misdemeanor charge in the case and has been stripped of her powers as a correctional officer pending the outcome of an investigation, a spokesperson for the Cook County Sheriff’s Department told NBC Chicago.
“Anybody that has a weapon should be responsible enough to have it locked away in a gun-safe that is childproof,” Cook said.
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In a letter to parents, the superintendent said that the plan is to have counselors available to students and faculty on Thursday, with Renee Nichols, whose grandson attends the school, expressing gratitude that a scary situation didn’t end in tragedy.
“You hear so much going on in the schools that you’re just grateful they were able to retrieve the gun before it went off,” she said.
