Acting on a tip this morning, Baltimore City Public Schools police transported a student away from Pimlico Elementary/Middle School after seizing a BB gun and temporarily locking the building down.
The incident, first reported by WBAL-TV, happened “before the regular school day began,” school system spokeswoman Edie House Foster wrote in an email to Baltimore Fishbowl. Administrators learned “a student had threatened to bring a weapon inside the building before classes began,” she said.
“Students had a regular school day,” Foster added. “Classes were not interrupted.”
Police were able to quickly find the student and secure the weapon. The child will be disciplined according to the school system’s code of conduct. Punishment for possession of a BB gun ranges from a short-term suspension to expulsion, according to the manual.
In a letter to parents, school principal LaJuan Alston wrote that “at no time did the student use the BB gun or threaten any students or staff members. All of our security processes were put in place, and I was proud of our students in following staff members’ instructions and in going ahead with important learning once the situation was resolved.”
The incident occurred within hours of a separate case at Loch Raven High School in Baltimore County. Police there arrested a student after a school resource officer was told the 14-year-old was concealing a firearm in their backpack. The student initially ran from the officer, initiating a lockdown.
Authorities recovered a pellet gun, and then detained the suspect.
Both scares happened one day after a white supremacist-affiliated student in Parkland, Fla., gunned down 17 people and wounded at least 14 others.
Alston, at Pimlico, acknowledged yesterday’s mass shooting as a “tragedy,” and wrote to parents that “the staff here at Pimlico will take extra steps to make sure that students know they are safe.”
