Police say a student was found with a loaded gun and bullets inside his backpack at school in Brooklyn Tuesday afternoon, the third time in less than a week a gun has been recovered from a child in school in New York City.
Authorities say a loaded 9-millimeter gun was confiscated from a 14-year-old boy at MS 61 in Crown Heights just before 1 p.m.
According to Derek Jackson, an official with Local 237, the school safety officers' union, the seventh-grade student told another student he brought the gun in because he was having a problem with another student.
A student told the dean that the boy had the gun, and the safety officers went to recover the gun from the bag, along with two magazines, said Jackson.
No one was hurt, and charges are pending against the boy.
Toya Holness, spokeswoman for the Department of Education, said in a statement, "This is profoundly disturbing and we are working in close partnership with NYPD to investigate this incident. There is zero tolerance for weapons of any kind and nothing is more important than the safety of all students and staff."
She said families will be notified and officials are providing addiitonal support to the school community.
Local
Last week, an 11-year-old boy was caught with a loaded 9 millimeter handgun at a Queens school. Two days later, a student was found with a loaded .38-caliber revolver at York Early College Academy, also in Queens.
Later that week, an advocacy group that supports charter schools, Families for Excellent Schools, said the number of weapons confiscated at New York City public schools rose sharply in 2015.
Its report found the biggest increase in weapons seized was in the number of stun guns, from four in the 2013-2014 school year to 62 in 2014-2015. The report was based on NYPD records that the education group says it obtained through a freedom of information request.
