A 15-year-old Brownstown Central High School student was arrested Monday morning after he was found with a loaded handgun inside the school.
At 8:18 a.m., Brownstown Police Department officers responded to the school after a 911 call was made via cellphone to Jackson County Sheriff’s Department dispatch.
When police arrived, the student was in the school office with administrators and was arrested without incident.
Principal Joe Sheffer said a couple of staff members saw the student walking in the hallway when he should have been in class, and he also had a cellphone, which is against school policy.
Once he was taken to the office, school administrators found a gun.
Police quickly arrived at the school and arrested the teenager, and the gun was collected for evidence. He was taken to Schneck Medical Center in Seymour, which is standard procedure in a situation of this type to make sure there are no underlying circumstances, Brownstown Police Chief Tom Hanner said.
At no time were any students or staff in danger, and no one was injured, police said.
“This was resolved peacefully, which is a plus,” Hanner said.
He said he was not prepared to release the name of the student Monday afternoon or the type of gun except to say it was a handgun.
The teenager was taken to the Jackson County Juvenile Detention Center in Brownstown. He faces a felony charge of bringing a weapon onto school property.
Sheffer said, following state law, the student will have to be out of school for one calendar year.
“They don’t take that lightly,” Sheffer said of the policy when a student is found with a gun.
During the incident, all three Brownstown schools were put on soft lockdown as a precaution, Sheffer said. That involves interior and exterior doors being secured to ensure no one goes in or out of the buildings.
Once the teenager was in custody and removed from the school, Brownstown and county officers completed a walk-through of the building.
“We walked the school to check to make sure there were no other potential threats,” Hanner said. “We wanted to make sure it was an isolated incident.”
About 9 a.m., Sheffer released an email to all school officials to let them know the walk-through was completed.
The police department assigned an officer and a school resource officer to be present at the high school for the rest of the day.
“The school is safe and secure, and school activities will proceed as normal,” Sheffer wrote in the email.
Tom Wright, one of the school resource officers, is the lead investigator. Brownstown Police Department and the Jackson County Sheriff’s Department are continuing the investigation.
