Parents Outraged After Boy Threatens Kids With BB Gun On Elementary School Bus
BALTIMORE (WJZ)—Some Baltimore City school parents are reeling after a student reportedly used a BB gun to threaten other children.
Derek Valcourt has details on what happened.
The kids involved are between 7 and 10 years old. They didn't know this was a BB gun. They thought they were looking at the real thing pointed in their faces.
Two young brothers say a bully confronted them with a BB gun as they rode the bus to school Wednesday morning.
"This boy got on the bus. He sat next to me, and he pulled out a gun and pointed it at me, and told me to shut up or he was going to shoot me," said Derrick.
"I was asleep and he woke up and that's when he had the gun in my face and was like, 'Where's my money at?'" Devin said.
The frightened boys were not harmed, but reported the incident to their principal at Grove Park Elementary.
School officials investigated and learned the BB gun wielding bully attended nearby Arlington Elementary, which shares the bus route.
At first, school administrators couldn't find the gun, but a school custodian later found it hidden in the basement.
For their part, school officials would only confirm that the student who brought the weapon was disciplined and the case has been referred to the Department of Juvenile Services.
"I just can't grasp the fact that my children were put in that situation, and I trusted these people with my kids," the boys' mother said.
The boys' mother is outraged with how the school and the bus company handled the situation.
"Anything could have happened yesterday. Them children had nowhere to run, and the person who is supposed to be on the bus to protect them failed," their mother said.
Other parents were just as alarmed to learn about a BB gun at school.
"How can you learn when you are in an environment where you are full of fear and it's violent like that, so I wanna know what are they going to do? What are they going to do so that it doesn't happen to anyone else's child?" said Stacie Jones, school parent.
A school spokesperson says the school bus monitor who rode that bus did report the weapon to the principal. It's not clear why the BB gun wasn't confiscated right away.
Under the school system's code of conduct, punishment for bringing a BB gun to school can range from a suspension to an expulsion.
