Lieutenant Ryan Flood, Public Information Officer with the Greenville County Sheriff's Office issued the following press release Wednesday afternoon following an incident at Berea High School.
This morning, at around 11:15am, the School Resource Officer at Berea High School received information that a 16 year-old student had a gun inside of his backpack. The information was initially reported by another student who then informed school staff. When the SRO went to the student’s classroom to make contact with him, he discovered the student had walked out of the classroom and was nowhere to be found.
Additional deputies were immediately called to the scene and the school was placed on lockdown as deputies began a search, inside and out, for the missing student. During the search, deputies located the student in a classroom across the hall and discovered the gun was actually a bb gun that resembled a real handgun. The gun was found inside of another student’s backpack, which was in the same classroom as the 16 year-old student. Deputies have since charged both the 16 year-old male student and the 15 year-old male student whose backpack the gun was found in, with Possession of a Weapon on School Property.
Deputies have since learned the 16 year-old who brought the gun had been in a recent argument with another student (who was not at school today) and expressed this being his reason for bringing the gun to school, although deputies did not find that direct verbal threats were made today.
Upon locating the suspects and the bb gun, the school lockdown was lifted and school was allowed to resume as usual. The 16 year-old suspect was transported to the Greenville County Juvenile Detention Center and the 15 year-old was released to family.
Beth Brotherton, spokesperson for the Greenville County School District issued this statement Wednesday afternoon following the incident at Berea high School.
Both of the students involved in the incident at Berea High today are in the 9th grade, the student who brought the BB gun and the student who took possession of it later. Both are suspended and recommended for expulsion.
We also discussed during the news conference that many students at Berea High were taking End of Course (EOC) exams and that the lockdown was a disruption. I was asked how make up exams would work. It is now my understanding that once you begin an EOC you must finish. There are no stop and starts and no make ups. Students at Berea were told to continue with their exams despite the lockdown. As you can imagine these are not ideal circumstances in which to complete an important test. Teachers did an excellent job of reassuring students and encouraging them to stay on task.
