Published: May 08, 2008 10:54 am            

Gun at school

District says schools safe; sixth grader in custody

San Marcos — A 12-year-old boy remains in custody at the Hays Juvenile Detention Center today while police investigate why he brought a gun to Hernandez Intermediate School on Tuesday.

The gun, a .38 caliber revolver, was confiscated at 2:15 p.m. on Tuesday when a teacher noticed a sixth grader surrounded by other students, said district officials.

“One of our teachers saw some activity in the hall, some students looking at a backpack and she became suspicious,” superintendent Dr. Patty Shafer said. “An assistant principal then took the backpack and the witnesses and the students, and searched the backpack and did find an unloaded handgun.”

Student Resource Officer Sgt. Bob Klett later found two bullets in the student’s pocket.

The boy was suspended and charged with a felony offense of “places where weapons are prohibited,” said Klett, and could also face a year-long expulsion from school.

“There will be school consequences because this is a very serious matter, as well as consequences with the law because it is actually a felony what occurred,” Shafer said.

She said other students may have known about the gun before it was confiscated, but none of those students faced punishment as of Wednesday.

The investigation continues on where the youth got the gun, as well as what he planned to do with it.

“He is a student who has a strong academic record and has a clean discipline record. He’s not one who gets in trouble a lot,” Shafer said.

Klett said no one at school felt they were in danger at the time of the incident.

“Nobody I talked to yesterday felt immediately threatened, as far as students that I had talked to,” Klett said. “You know weird things can happen at a moment’s notice, but nobody was feeling threatened yesterday.”

He does not expect any further charges against the boy, but the gun’s owner could face a Class C misdemeanor for allowing him access to the firearm.

Klett said this is the first time he’s responded to a report of a gun on an SMCISD campus.

“Over the past several years that I’ve been in charge of the unit, we have had maybe one or two weapons offenses, but I can not recall a time when we’ve had a gun on campus,” Klett said.

Student Resource Officers (SROs), San Marcos Police Officers whose main assignments are SMCISD campuses, are placed at three schools in the district, two at junior high campuses and one at the high school. Hernandez Intermediate does not have a permanent SRO, but is covered as needed by other SMPD officers, said Klett.

As an immediate response, students and staff met in separate meetings on Wednesday for a reminder on school safety.

“We met with the staff, reminded them what to look for, what a staff member needs to do if they see anything unusual,” Shafer said. “They then had an assembly for all of the Hernandez students and went over some of the same information on how important it is to report anything you see that’s suspicious.”

SROs and school officials will be meeting with students and staff on every district campus in the next few days.

“We have had training, but we want to reemphasize this training to all of our students and all of our staff,” Shafer said.

A letter went out to parents Wednesday explaining the situation and counselors have been on alert at Hernandez for students who may need extra attention.

In the coming weeks, schools will be evaluating security tactics, Klett said.

“We look at the weak spots and the strong spots, what we can do to improve and what we keep on doing. Those are all constant ongoing evaluations that we work with this school district on.”

Staff training, lock-down doors and security officers are part of each campus’ safety plan, and police work with students and staff to encourage reporting suspicious activity.

“I had a couple who came to the school to talk to me, basically in support. ‘What do you need from us? We’re willing to do anything. We want to help you do whatever you need to’,” Shafer said.

Klett said the investigation should wrap up by the end of the week.

“It was handled quickly and no one was really in imminent danger, it was an unloaded gun,” Shafer said. “We want our families to be aware of what happened and we want them to be assured that their children are safe.”

        

• Click to discuss this story with other readers on our forums.