An Ithaca elementary student had a knife blade and a broken BB gun at school for an entire day last week that was only discovered by school officials the next day.
North Elementary School principal Renee Sopel was made aware on May 2 of the incident that occurred May 1 and that nothing was brought to her attention the day before, during or after school, according to the report filed by Gratiot County Sheriff’s Office Deputy Marty Schueller.
Police provided the report of the incident to The Morning Sun after a Freedom of Information Act request was fulfilled Thursday after being filed Wednesday.
The report reveals that the incident occurred on the afternoon of May 1 off of school grounds near Arcada Street west of North Pine River Street where a student showed other students what appeared to be a gun and a knife blade in his possession.
Citing protection of student records by the federal Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, a FOIA request filed by The Morning Sun with the school district for more information on the incident was denied on Thursday.
On May 2, students reported the incident to staff.
The report also indicates there were two suspects.
Sopel interviewed seven students in total, including the two suspects and five witnesses, at the school. Deputy Schueller sat in on the interviews but did not speak to the suspects or witnesses.
The first witness interviewed indicated she was walking home on May 1 with a male student when they noticed several other students “messing around with a backpack” and were called over because “they wanted to show him something.”
The female was asked to leave the situation because it was “none of her business what they were doing,” the report stated.
Then one of the students showed another a pistol and a knife blade.
Police later determined the pistol was a CO-2 BB WALTHER P99 brand that was missing a magazine to hold the CO-2 cartridge and BBs, and found to be non-operational. The knife blade was later determined to be sharp, black and up to 4 inches long.
The student with the knife blade told others who saw it not to tell anyone about what they saw.
On the morning of May 2, the first witness asked the student who had the knife and pistol where he got it from in order to tell Sopel about it.
However, the student who brought them said he did not know what he did with the knife blade and did not have it with him.
A second witness described first seeing the pistol wrapped in a bandana.
“(They) were not sure it was real or not because it did not have an orange tip on the barrel,” the student reportedly told Sopel.
The told Sopel the items came from an abandoned home in North Star according to the student who brought the gun and knife blade.
The abandoned home where he took the weapons from after visiting it with one of the other students is owned by that student’s uncle.
Sopel asked where the knife blade was at the time of the interview.
The student told Sopel it was “probably” in a drawer in his bedroom put there before they went to bed. The student also said they did not know where the gun was located.
A search was done of the two suspected students’ lockers, backpacks and items such as hooded sweatshirts for the gun but it was not found, the report indicated.
One of the witnesses recalled seeing the pistol in one of the suspected students’ rooms at their home because the witness and the suspect had a sleepover the night before the incident.
“(Redacted) advised (redacted) had said he did not care if he got into trouble and nobody would find out anyway,” one of the witnesses told Sopel.
While being interviewed by Sopel, one of the suspected students said he had never heard of a pistol or knife in his backpack and demanded that one of his parents be present.
The child’s mother arrived, stating she “was sure” her child had not been in the abandoned house and that she personally packed her child’s backpack before she took to school her child and the child who stayed overnight into the morning of May 2.
“She said she would have seen a pistol in the backpack if there was one in it,” the report indicated.
The mother of the other suspect was called and that suspect told her the pistol was located in his room. Once located, it was turned over to police as evidence.
The knife blade was located in the other suspect’s room and turned over to police as evidence.
The case has been turned over to the county prosecutor’s office for review.