Mom Packs Books, Lunch, Pistol for 6-Year-Old

One 6-year-old girl surprised her classmates at a New York school this week by opening her bag and brandishing a .25-caliber handgun—left courtesy of her mom, a retired NYPD detective. "No one was hurt—but maybe she don't know it's a real gun and bang, bang, bang," said one disturbed parent. The girl's mother, Marian Brioso, put her Taurus pistol in the bag for safekeeping but forgot about it, police said.

Shaken classmates met with school therapists the next day, and parents remained distressed by the incident, the New York Daily News reports. "I'm really worried. I don't know why a child would have a gun," said the mother of a second-grader. Brioso wasn't charged, but cops notified the Administration for Children's Services. Her husband, an NYPD captain, opted not to comment on the pistol packing. (More NYPD stories.)