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Wednesday, 10/04/06
First-grader has loaded gun in
school
By CHRISTIAN BOTTORFF
Staff Writer
A 6-year-old
first-grader will probably be suspended after he was caught Tuesday
showing a loaded .38-caliber pistol to other students during lunch
and breakfast breaks at Cumberland Elementary, Metro school
officials said.
It was the second
time in as many days that guns have been seized from students at
Metro schools. On Monday, two 15-year-old ninth-graders were
arrested on charges of carrying a gun at McGavock High School, Metro
police said.
The incidents come
as three deadly school shootings during the past week led the Bush
administration this week to call for a federal summit on school
violence.
In the Cumberland
Elementary School incident, the child was caught after his friends
innocently asked the teacher if she wanted to see the gun, school
officials said. The teacher looked in the student's backpack and
called police when she found the weapon.
Metro schools
officials yesterday blamed the child's family for keeping the gun
within the child's reach.
"This is not a
case where an irresponsible child acted here," said Ralph Thompson,
Metro schools' assistant superintendent of student services. "This
is a case where we had parents that just needed to be careful. All
parents need to be careful where they leave their weapons,
particularly in a situation where they are easily accessible to
these children."
Detectives from
the Metro Police Youth Services division are investigating whether
adults will face criminal charges for keeping the gun within reach
of the child.
The student will
probably be suspended under state and local zero-tolerance laws,
Thompson said. The case will be referred to the Tennessee Department
of Children's Services for investigation, he said.
In the McGavock
incident, one of the two arrested students said the unloaded gun,
which had been passed between the two, was brought to school for
protection, police said.
Discovery of the
firearms comes at a time when schools nationwide are on heightened
alert against gun violence.
On Monday, a
gunman entered a tiny one-room Amish schoolhouse in Lancaster
County, Penn., and shot several young girls after lining them up
against a wall. Five girls died, and Tuesday several others remained
hospitalized.
On Friday, a
troubled teen killed his school principal in rural Wisconsin after
being disciplined for tobacco use.
Two days earlier,
in Bailey, Colo., a gunman took several girls hostage in a school
classroom, sexually molested them and then killed one of them,
before turning the gun on himself.
During the
previous school year, 12 guns were found inside Metro schools,
school officials said. That number came close to the 1999-2000
school year, when a record 13 guns were recovered, Metro school
officials said. •
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