South Florida students honored for doing the right thing
MIAMI - Ten-year-old Alonso Mercedes was on campus when he found a gun, concealed in a pouch on the physical education field.
He immediately turned it over to a teacher.
"I was scared," said Alonso.
And in the wake of the tragic school shooting in Texas, it's more important now than ever to speak up.
Just like 4th grader Derek Rojas did after he overheard a group of 4th graders plotting to set their school on fire last month.
"I heard plan a plan b type of things. If the first plan didn't work they had a better plan," said Rojas.
He said the students even had matches with them for the alleged plan.
His mother is very proud. He told a teacher.
"I told him why did you do that if you were scared and he said because I wanted to save my brother's life," said Ia Carrasco, Derek's mother.
Fourth-grader Randy Clark was also honored. He reported a student who brought a bb-gun to school and then offered him a vape pen.
"They showed me a bb-gun and I told the teacher about that too," said Randy.
"I thought he was going to shoot me with it, to be honest. So, I told the teacher," he added.
Any threats or pranks against a public school in Miami-Dade County is taken seriously and the district has the "it's no joke" app available through their fortify-fl portal,
which allows students to report a threat directly to school administrators.
"We have had numerous kids that have come forward with information about schoolmates, who are planning to do harm to other children. So, it is an incredible example that the kids in our community at absolutely standing up for one another, keeping our community safe and they're not afraid to say when they see danger ahead," said Manny Morales, City of Miami Police Chief.