On Tuesday, a 10-year-old fourth-grader brought a loaded gun to Glassell Park Elementary School, the Times has learned.
Details about the incident are slowly emerging. In a message sent to the school community Tuesday evening, Principal Claudia Pelayo said “a handgun was found on campus.”
No one was injured in the incident.
“We took immediate action, including securing the weapon and notifying the Los Angeles School Police Department and Region West Operations for further investigation,” their message added. “The parents of the affected student have been notified.”
Sources told the Times that a boy brought a loaded .40-caliber Glock 22 to campus and was told the gun was stolen. A student saw the boy brandishing the gun and reported it to an adult, sources said. The district administration neither confirmed nor denied these details.
The gun seizure reflects a worrying rise in “weapons incidents” and fights in Los Angeles Unified schools, at a time when many parents are demanding more police and security after the school board cut the police budget four years ago.
The principal’s message said school police would be “on scene” Wednesday “to assist the school.”
The message did not mention any action taken regarding the student, except that his parents were informed that the gun was recovered.
The district statement said, “Our school will continue to follow the district’s Discipline Foundation Policy to provide a safe and healthy learning environment for our students.” But no information was provided about the discipline policy or how it applies to this situation.
In a follow-up, a district spokesperson said a link Add to the Parent-Student Handbook.
Gun manufacturers Description of the confiscated Glock “It is by far the most popular police service pistol in the United States,” adding that the gun “fires the powerful 40 S&W cartridge and holds more rounds for its size and weight than most other full-size handguns in its class.”
Sharp rise in gun-related incidents
Incidents involving weapons have risen sharply in L.A. schools since students returned to in-person learning following pandemic-related campus closures that lasted more than a year, beginning in March 2020.
According to district data, there were 669 weapons “incidents” in the 2018-19 school year before the pandemic, down from 705 incidents the previous year.
But these incidents rose to 994 in 2021-22 and again to 1,197 the following year, an increase of nearly 80% compared to pre-pandemic levels in a school system hit by a drop in enrolment.
There were 903 incidents involving weapons till April 15 this year. The incidents since then include the arrest of two students on May 3 who were arrested for carrying weapons. Loaded semiautomatic handgun Around Northridge Middle School. A Washington Preparatory High School student carrying a weapon a student was shot dead On April 15, outside the campus.
Also Tuesday, at the Board of Education’s regular meeting, a delegation of parents presented a petition with more than 4,000 signatures demanding the restoration of the slashed school-police budget and the return of officers to campus.
In 2020, the school board voted to cut the school police budget by 30% in the wake of the killing of George Floyd by police in the city of Minneapolis.
Parents on Tuesday criticized the board for equating the district’s school police with the inexcusable actions of municipal police forces in other parts of the country.
A separate group of Clinton Middle School parents also demanded police presence, and said in public comments that the district has failed to prevent “five to six fights a day,” with the fights being filmed with mobile phones, which are then uploaded to social media.
The latest gun seizure doesn’t jibe with the ongoing debate over school safety and the role of school police.
L.A. Unified has never had officers in elementary schools. Before the cuts, one officer was permanently stationed at a high school and one officer split time between two middle schools.
Under current district policy, no officer may enter campus for any reason other than to respond to an emergency, conduct an investigation or make an arrest. A recent attempt to make a limited exception to this policy failed just one day later in between finger pointing There was controversy over who had authorised this change.
Teachers union President Cecily Myart-Cruz on Tuesday criticized the school board for not keeping its promise to further cut the police budget.
Max Arias, another union leader who represents the largest number of non-teaching staff, stressed the importance of unarmed campus assistants to make schools safer.
Arias also criticized the district’s cuts for reducing the hours of campus assistants and, in the process, leaving these employees with fewer hours to qualify for health benefits.
Even when it comes to explaining the rising number of weapons, there is debate over whether campus police will be a deterrent.
Board member George McKenna has repeatedly said that having an officer on campus helps deter students from bringing weapons to school.
But that’s not the view of Joseph Williams, director of Students Deserve, which recruits and supports student activists seeking to defund the police.
He said in an interview that when the weapons were confiscated, was anybody injured? No. Why? Because some students on that campus trusted the adults enough to say, ‘Hey, this is happening and we need to address it,’ and people were able to intervene.
He said the presence of an officer would have undermined that confidence, making the situation more dangerous.
But he also blamed the district for not providing the counseling and other non-law enforcement support needed to make students feel safe.
