A woman was arrested Wednesday after her child found her gun in his backpack, Clark County School District police said.

Iris Guerrero and Sebastian Nava-Guerra (Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department)

A woman was arrested Tuesday after her son found her gun in his backpack at a central Las Vegas elementary school, police said.

The Bracken Elementary third-grader opened his backpack to get something in class and found a pistol, Clark County School District police Sgt. Bryan Zink said. He immediately reported it to his teacher and said he had no idea how the gun got there.

Zink said that the gun was not loaded and there was no ammunition in the backpack.

School police called the boy’s mother, Iris Guerrero, 36, and she admitted the gun was hers.

Guerrero told police that “when she arrived home, the kids wanted to go play soccer and she put the handgun there knowing the kids did not have school Monday because of the holiday and forgot to remove it,” according to a recently released arrest report.

Zink said Guerrero was dropped off at the school, 1200 N. 27th St., by 30-year-old Sebastian Nava-Guerra, who parked a red Cadillac Escalade in a red zone in front of the school to wait for her. When officers went to tell him he couldn’t park there, they noticed the vehicle’s registration was expired.

When they asked Nava-Guerra for his license, insurance and registration, he told them he didn’t have anything. Officers said they would need to tow the car and searched the vehicle while they waited for the tow truck.

Officers reported that they found a pistol between the passenger seat and the center console and methamphetamine in the man’s pocket.

The man was arrested on charges of owning or possessing a gun as a prohibited person, possessing methamphetamine, driving without a valid driver’s license, driving an unregistered vehicle and driving without insurance.

The mother was arrested on child abuse and child endangerment charges, Zink said.

Contact Alexis Egeland at aegeland@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0335. Follow @alexis_egeland on Twitter.