Boy, 14, caught with loaded gun in his backpack entering his Brooklyn high school
A 14-year-old boy was caught entering his Brooklyn public high school with a loaded gun in his backpack Thursday morning, police said.
School safety officers assigned to Automotive High School on Bedford Ave. in Williamsburg grabbed the child after the .38-caliber pistol was detected during screening in his backpack about 8:30 a.m., police said.
The teen was taken into custody without incident, officials said. Charges against him were pending.
Thursday’s arrest came after five city school students were caught with guns in Queens, the Bronx and Brooklyn on Wednesday and Thursday last week.
Two of the guns were turned up by metal detector scanning, one was discovered during a brawl and two were reported by other students. Police made arrests in all five of those cases.
Mayor de Blasio and Schools Chancellor Meisha Porter praised school safety agents for their role in recovering the weapons.
The rash of gun discoveries reignited a thorny debate about police presence in city schools.
Some parents and advocates called on the city to boost the number of school safety agents and metal detectors in response to the weapon scares.
Teamsters Local 237, the union representing school safety agents, has complained of a labor shortage after 8% of agents didn’t comply with the city’s vaccine mandate and the officials hired a smaller incoming class this year.
