Student in custody after guns found following threat of shooting at Pennsylvania school

Published November 20, 2014

Two handguns have been seized from the bedroom of a teen who threatened a shooting at his suburban Philadelphia high school a week after a mass killing at a Connecticut elementary school, police said Friday.

The Council Rock South High School ninth-grader was taken into custody Thursday after fellow students reported he made threatening statements, Northampton Township police said.

Two 9 mm handguns were in plain sight in the boy's bedroom when police went to his home, according to Detective Sgt. Bill Klein. He said a more thorough search would be performed after police obtained a search warrant.

Klein said at least two students and their parents reported the threats to police Thursday night.

The unidentified student remains in custody at a juvenile facility. His mother was charged with drug and weapons counts after police arrived at the home, and a man in the home was charged with obstruction of justice and resisting arrest, Klein said.

Council Rock School District is headquartered in Newtown, a community with the same name as the Connecticut town where a gunman killed 20 elementary school students a week ago. The affected high school is in nearby Holland.

The student made no mention of last Friday's shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., but did threaten violence against students and teachers, Klein said.

"We determined early on that it was credible," Klein said. "We weren't sure he had the means to carry it out, but in effecting the arrest, we found the two handguns and that certainly ramped things up."

The high school canceled classes Friday, but Klein said it appears no other students were involved in the threats. The district said it was canceling classes as a precaution so police could search the school.

"The statements were made in school by the juvenile to peers. It spread kind of rapidly," Klein said.

Emmaus High School in nearby Lehigh County was closed Friday after a bomb threat. Police in suburban Pittsburgh also reported two students were taken into custody after a pair of shooting threats at Hopewell High School on Friday.

URL

https://www.foxnews.com/us/student-in-custody-after-guns-found-following-threat-of-shooting-at-pennsylvania-school