Palo Alto police are reporting that two juveniles have been arrested in separate incidents over the past week for bringing weapons to school.
Authorities say the first incident occurred on February 8 at about 1:30 p.m. when school officials reported to police that a student had brought a stun gun to school. Investigation revealed that two students had left campus during class hours to buy and sell marijuana to each other. During the drug sale, one of the students produced the stun gun and attempted to use it on the other. The victim was able to avoid being tased and returned to campus to report the incident. The suspect student was apprehended by school officials and the teen’s parents were notified of the incident, along with police. Responding officers reportedly located the stun gun in the suspect’s backpack.
The second incident occurred February 11 at about 11:45 a.m. when police received a report of a student who allegedly brought a weapon to school. Students had notified campus officials that the student had shown them a makeshift weapon that was inside the student’s backpack. Police responded, notified the suspect’s parents, and confiscated what they say was a homemade “gun” that was charged by a carbon dioxide chamber and could only fire corks, not bullets. The suspect claimed the weapon had been accidentally left in the backpack.
In both cases, the students were arrested and charged with possessing illegal weapons on school grounds before being released to their parents. The students are also facing disciplinary action by school officials.
No injuries were reported and police say there was no indication that either student was planning to attempt any mass casualty incident on campus. There was also no indication that the two incidents were related to one another.
“We have a solid relationship with all of our schools, and we have trained extensively with them about how to handle incidents involving weapons on campus,” Palo Alto police Lt. Zach Perron said. “Everything in these cases worked like it should: the initial tips of weapons on campus came directly from other students who did the right thing by notifying school staff right away, the school notified police immediately, and we worked collaboratively with school staff and parents to take appropriate action.”
Authorities are not releasing the suspects’ names, ages, class years, or genders because they are minors.
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