Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, January 26, 1992 TAG: 9201270223
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: SANDRA BROWN KELLY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
GUNS IN SCHOOLS A PROBLEM FACING MOST VA. CITIES
WESTERN VIRGINIA schools are not immune to the growing national problem of teen-agers carrying guns. The problem has put educators on alert and created newalliances between police and principals.\ A 15-year-old Danville ninth-grader took his pistol to school in December. After class, he and a 13-year-old friend met on the school parking lot to admire the gun.
As the younger student held the pistol, it fired and shot the 15-year-old in the abdomen. The .25-caliber bullet pierced his liver and a lung.
The youth will recover, but he faces charges of possessing a gun on school grounds and possible expulsion. The 13-year-old also faces a possession charge and possible expulsion, and a second charge of reckless handling of a firearm.
The Danville incident is an extreme - but not unheard of - example of what can happen when students have guns at school.
On any given day, parents, students, teachers and administrators in all corners of Virginia face the prospect that someone will arrive at school with a deadly weapon. Usually, it is concealed in a book bag, a knapsack or a pocket. Often, it is carried by a friend - someone less likely to be suspected of carrying a gun.
Although students offer varied reasons for carrying the guns; fear, popularity, curiosity and revenge are among them. The weapons are rarely fired in anger at schools. But the potential for gun-related accidents is a real fear for educators.
Interviews with police and school officials reveal that since September almost every locality has had at least one student bring a gun to school, with mixed consequences:
In Franklin County, a 13-year-old sold a .25-caliber gun to a classmate, who carried the weapon home on the school bus. The gun had a broken safety.
One day in November, pistols were found on two Henry County students, ages 13 and 17. During lunchtime, an assistant principal spotted a gun in the 17-year-old's pants pocket. The student said he needed the weapon for protection because of threats from some student in adjacent Pittsylvania County.
The 13-year-old was hiding a .22-caliber pistol for a 14-year-old friend, who said he brought it to school by mistake.
Last fall, a Norfolk high school student dropped his book bag and a gun inside fired. The bullet wounded another student in the shoulder. The student, described as an athlete who made good grades, told officials he was armed because he was afraid of things going on in his neighborhood. His book bag also contained a Bible.
In October 1990 at Lynchburg's E.C. Glass High School, a book bag fell and a .45-caliber gun discharged. No one was hit, but the incident was a shocking welcome on the first day for James McCormick, Lynchburg's then-new superintendent of schools.
McCormick said the E.C. Glass incident turned out to be "fairly innocent." Danville authorities said the show-and-tell wounding was apparently accidental.
Not all guns found in schools are in such innocent hands. Although there is no typical student carrying a gun, weapons and students go together most often where drugs or some other illegal activity is found, officials say.
The .25-caliber automatic pistol a Montgomery County high school student brought to school and sold for $25 led deputies to two other weapons that were stolen, former Sheriff Louis Barber said.
A .25-caliber gun a 13-year-old brought to school and sold in Franklin County had quite a history, sheriff's Capt. Billy Overton said. "It had been bought by one kid from another kid who had used a stolen CD player from Roanoke to buy it with."
Overton and officers in other rural counties believe some of their gun problems are spillovers from metropolitan areas.
John Kent, superintendent of Bedford County schools, said his schools are becoming more cautious about enrolling students from other localities. One school recently refused to admit a Roanoke youth after learning that the student had been expelled from school for carrying a gun.
But guns still make their way to school in Bedford. This school year, a student stole a gun from a relative and brought it to school to sell. It was found in his book bag after classmates tipped off school officials.
Guns and other violent weapons such as butterfly knives, stun guns and ice picks are becoming so common in schools that the December issue of a national school safety newsletter proposed John Philip Sousa's "Bullets & Bayonets" song as a replacement for "School Days, School Days."
Because kids are packing pistols in greater numbers and at younger ages, educators have had to concern themselves with weapons surveillance equipment and tougher school policies.
The California-based National School Safety Center reports that 20 percent of the nation's largest school systems use metal detectors to screen students for guns.
Metropolitan areas such as Roanoke, Lynchburg and Norfolk use hand-held metal detectors to scan for guns at special events or in certain circumstances.
Late last year, Norfolk school officials got the School Board to adopt a policy allowing the use of any necessary technology to keep guns out of public schools. George Raiss, director of information services for the schools, said the methods will include metal detectors and random searches.
"We don't intend to install airport scanners," Raiss said. "We hope we don't have to go to that, God forbid."
"We used to say our high schools are a microcosm of society," said McCormick, the Lynchburg superintendent. "Not true . . . society has invaded our schools through some students."
McCormick and his peers are using a variety of techniques to push back the invasion. After the student's gun fired at E.C. Glass High School, McCormick said he and principal Howard Hurt told students:
"If there's anything you should turn a fellow student in for, it's having a gun at school."
Educators say they usually find guns at school through tips from students.
Bedford County Superintendent Kent said his schools "run down every rumor" of a gun. He said officials will search lockers and cars if they suspect problems.
Henry County has a written policy forbidding brass knuckles, ice picks, knives, fireworks and stun guns, according to Clyde Dillard, director of student services. If a student is caught with a weapon, he or she is charged by police.
"We don't make any determination whether the kid meant to bring it or not," Dillard said.
Dillard is not optimistic that schools alone can solve the problem of guns and students. He said the situation will not change until the community gets involved.
"DUIs. Tobacco use. The community has gotten behind those and made a difference," he said.