A student riding a Chicago Public Schools bus in Bridgeport grabbed a gun belonging to a bus aide and fired a shot that blew out a window just before 2:30 p.m. Monday afternoon, according to school officials. No one was injured, but the school went into a soft lockdown and released students in waves as the situation was sorted out.
The assistant principal at Minnie Miñoso Academy said a student with disabilities grabbed a gun belonging to the aide and fired the shot, as first reported by CBS Chicago. The incident happened aboard the school bus itself, and the window damage confirmed a shot had actually been fired rather than merely brandished. School officials tagged the event a shooting, though they stressed no one — student, aide, or bystander — was hurt.
Minnie Miñoso Academy sits at 3527 S. Wallace St. in Bridgeport and serves roughly 300 students in grades Pre-K through 8, according to the Illinois Report Card. The school was formerly known as McClellan Elementary before it was renamed in 2023 to honor White Sox Hall of Famer Minnie Miñoso.
How a Gun Ended Up Within a Student's Reach
The central mystery here is how the aide came to have a gun accessible enough for a student to grab it in the first place. Under the Illinois Firearm Concealed Carry Act, carrying a firearm — concealed or open — is strictly prohibited inside school buildings, on school grounds, and inside any vehicle a school owns, leases, or contracts to transport students, including school buses, per the Giffords Law Center. Even holders of a valid Firearm Owner's Identification card may only bring a firearm near school property if it is unloaded, cased, and hidden from view inside a vehicle — a narrow exception that does not appear to cover a bus aide carrying an accessible weapon while supervising students, the Giffords Law Center notes.
The Chicago Public Schools Student Code of Conduct addresses student behavior, according to CPS policy. Under a 2021 revision of CPS conduct protocols reported by WTTW Chicago, administrators are told to prioritize de-escalation for minor infractions but must immediately call 911 in emergencies involving active threats, physical violence, or firearm possession.
Legal Stakes for a Student With Disabilities
Illinois law requires a local school board to expel for at least one year any student who possesses a firearm on school property, on a school bus, or at a school-sponsored event, though superintendents and boards retain authority to modify that duration case by case, per Giffords. Because the student involved has disabilities, the incident raises questions about how any discipline would be handled under special-education rules, but the supplied CBS Chicago report does not discuss those questions. CBS Chicago's report does not identify the aide's employer or discuss whether charges or termination will follow.
The legal framework also includes a federal appeals court decision. In a September 2025 decision in Schoenthal v. Raoul, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit issued an opinion, according to the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals.
A School Already Familiar With Emergency Protocols
This is not the first time Minnie Miñoso Academy has had to activate lockdown procedures. On September 23, 2024, the school entered a precautionary soft lockdown after an adult member of the school community suffered a fatal medical emergency inside the building, according to FOX 32 Chicago. School leadership partnered with the CPS Crisis Management Unit to provide counseling following that emergency, the outlet reported.
The Bridgeport school also expanded its community programming during the 2025 school year, when Chicago Youth Centers began serving Minnie Miñoso Academy through its “CYC on Campus” initiative. The organization provides after-school mentorship and social-emotional development programming for students in the neighborhood.
A Familiar Pattern Nationally
Monday's incident echoes a comparable case involving a student and a school resource officer's sidearm. The article also links to a CBS News report about another school firearm incident.
Firearms turning up on school transportation have surfaced in other jurisdictions recently, including a case Hoodline covered involving a 6-year-old with a loaded gun on a school bus, and another involving an adult who brought a locked firearm aboard a bus in Mukwonago. For now, CPS and Minnie Miñoso Academy have confirmed only that no one was injured Monday, that students were released from school in waves, and that the school briefly went into soft lockdown as officials worked to determine how the aide's gun ended up in a student's hands.
