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Sandra Yi ReportingHenry McKenna: "The weapon was in a coat, wrapped up in a coat. Ammunition was near the coat, underneath the coat. He did have a fully loaded clip."
Thanks to alert students, police managed to act quickly and arrest the teenager who brought that gun to school.
The teenager is a junior at Union High School in Roosevelt. Police say he brought the gun yesterday. The situation was resolved, and no one was hurt. Police are still investigating where the teen got the gun. They say he is cooperating.
Yesterday, police and the school acted quickly. In fact, some of the students we talked to today had no idea anything had happened. With students in class, police had a potentially dangerous situation on their hands. Someone reported hearing about a gun in school.
Henry McKenna, School Resource Officer: "As soon as we took the report, we took it very seriously, and acted on it immediately."
Police found an unloaded gun and bullets in a 9th grade student's locker. He told police he didn't know about it until his friend asked him to put it there.
Henry McKenna: "When they put the weapon in the locker, the other student became very upset, walked away immediately."
Police arrested the 17-year old student across the street, where he was taking a test. He told investigators he never intended to use the gun.
Henry McKenna: "He had placed the weapon itself in one pocket and made it known that he had put the bullets in another pocket to keep them completely separated, so he didn't have an accident or discharge or hurt somebody else."
The teen told Mckenna he was being bullied and needed a gun for protection. But he refused to give details. On Tuesday he also told his friends he had problems.
Henry McKenna: "He was very depressed, very angry about certain things that we're not sure."
Eric Dongaard, Student, Union High School: "All I heard was that a kid brought a gun to school because he was getting made fun of at class with a bunch of kids, and got sick of it and brought it to school."
The teen says,= he just wanted to impress his friends. Still, the school wasn't about to take any chances.
Brent Fieldsted, Principal, Union High School: "It's really been business as usual today and we're glad for that, because we could have been in something way worse than what we're dealing with."
Eric Dongaard: "It kinda makes me nervous. It's kind of spooky. But we've got good security. I've seen cops here before. It's nice."
The teen has only been going to Union High School for three weeks, and until yesterday, had no problems there. He's now in a juvenile detention center.
Police did not evacuate or lockdown the school yesterday; they tell us it would have only led to chaos. They didn't know where the gun was and they didn't want to tip the teen off, so they acted quickly and quietly to resolve this. They didn't want to alarm any of the other students. And again, some of them didn't even know anything had happened yesterday.
