12 Year Old Boy Charged with Bringing Pistol to School

CHEROKEE CO., Ga. -- A 12 year old boy is in custody charged with bringing a handgun to his school, Dean Rusk Middle School, on Tuesday morning.

"I believe the gun was in his pocket, his pants pocket," when he arrived at school, said the spokesman for Cherokee County Public Schools, Mike McGowan.

McGowan described the gun as a small, .22 "over under" pistol, meaning it has two barrels, one over the other, and can fire two shots.

"And he also had a few rounds of ammunition -- not in the gun but in his possession, as well as in his locker."

Rachel Nelson, another 12 year old at Dean Rusk MS, said the boy was not shy about showing the gun to students.

"I think he told some people and he showed some people, and not everybody told" the teachers or administrators. "But one person just got concerned and so I think they just told the teacher, because they were scared or something."

Police say a girl in the boy's 2nd period class is the one who told the teacher. The gun was quickly confiscated and the boy taken away.

"It's kind of scary," Rachel said, "because it could be loaded and he could want to do harm or something."

McGowan said police later concluded the boy did not intend to shoot anyone, and that he had not brought the gun to school before Tuesday.

"And there's no indication that he had any specific reason to bring it," McGowan said. "It's been rumored that there were threats and hit lists. And none of that is true."

"That makes me feel better," Rachel said, "knowing that it's just because he kind of wanted to show off, I guess" and not hurt anyone.

Police were not saying where the boy got the gun, or why he brought it to school, or how he could not have known it is against the law, a felony, to bring a gun onto school property.

"I'm totally shocked," said Richard Nelson, Rachel's father. He found out the way most parents did -- from a letter that Principal Adrian Thomason sent home with students Tuesday afternoon.

The school was never on lockdown, it was not evacuated; school police said they had no reason to believe the boy had any other guns hidden anywhere on school property and "No students were ultimately, thankfully, in harm's way," McGowan said.

This past March in Cherokee County, Woodstock High School went on lockdown while police searched for a handgun.

Police found it hidden in a school bathroom. They arrested two teens and charged them with bringing the handgun to school. Then police found two semi-automatic rifles and multiple rounds of ammunition in the home of one of the teens.

Now eight months later -- they say it's a 12 year old at a middle school with a gun.

"I believe that it's just really a stupid choice made by a student," McGowan said.

The boy is in juvenile detention. McGowan said the district attorney will decide whether to try him as an adult.