Thursday, April 30, 1998 | 11:25 a.m.
Three students were arrested Wednesday after firing shots from a .22-caliber revolver near Vail Pittman Elementary School as classes were letting out for the day, Clark County School District Police said.
The arrest of the teens marks the ninth student caught in recent weeks for bringing handguns onto school grounds. But Wednesday's incident marked the first where a student had actually fired rounds, school police said.
No injuries were reported.
The day before, a parent had called school police informing them that a boy with a gun in his waistband had been standing across the street from the Pittman campus, at 6333 Fargo Ave. near Washington Avenue and Jones Boulevard, as school was being dismissed, school police Sgt. Ken Young said.
On Wednesday at about the same time, the parent called again and said the boy had returned to the campus.
School and Metro Police, who were in the area, responded and saw nine boys gathered outside the school, Young said.
Two 14-year-old boys and one 15-year old were taken to Juvenile Hall, where they were charged with possession of a firearm and discharging a firearm, Young said. All the boys were Garside students, he said. One of the boys had dumped a backpack, which had the gun inside, in a trash can, he said. Another boy had live rounds in his pocket, Young said.
By the time the students got to the school, the gun was not loaded, Young said. However, one of the teens had fired it "straight into the air" in an alley near the school, he said.
Superintendent Brian Cram said today that the district has a zero-tolerance policy for guns in school.
"If a student brings a gun onto campus he will never attend a regular school again," Cram said. "Beyond the hysteria of the whole thing, the bottom line is we don't want a single gun on our campuses, period."
Cram said there are more school police on campuses today than in past years "and they're better trained."
"We have more surveillance than we have in the past. We're probably picking up more guns because we're better able to do that."
He noted, "We take this very seriously. We intend to do everything we can to protect the students. Most students don't engage in this kind of behavior. When you have guns in the community the possibility always exists that students will bring them onto campuses."
On Tuesday, a 12-year-old student at O'Callaghan Middle School was arrested for carrying a loaded semiautomatic handgun into a classroom.
On April 15, a .45-caliber loaded handgun was taken from a student on the campus of Western High School. The same day, a student at Bonanza High School was arrested for possession of a loaded .25-caliber handgun on campus.
On April 16, a .45-caliber weapon was confiscated from a teenager who had gone onto the campus of Eldorado High School.
In March, an 11-year-old boy brought a loaded handgun onto the Kim Elementary School campus. The gun belonged to his parents.
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