7th grade student had gun on campus

Wednesday, February 1, 2017

By RASHAD ROLLE

Tribune Staff Reporter

rrolle@tribunemedia.net

A SEVENTH grade male student of AF Adderley Junior High School brought a gun on the school’s campus Monday and was arrested by police, officials confirmed yesterday.

Another male student is also being questioned by police.

Although the incident occurred on Monday, police did not release an official report on the matter until Tuesday evening. Police said they did not find any ammunition for the weapon.

Expressing outrage, Joan Knowles-Turnquest, the acting president of the Bahamas Union of Teachers (BUT), said: “There could have been a death.”

“We could have heard the sirens of police going down the road to pick up a dead body, someone’s mother, sister, brother or child,” she added.

Education Director Lionel Sands told The Tribune that police took the gun and the student who had it away after another student told a teacher the boy had a weapon in his bag.

“(The student) was not brandishing the gun,” Mr Sands explained.

He added that the “standard process” was followed in responding to the situation.

“The student will be kept away and given the necessary counseling after police do what they have to do,” he said.

Students were not sent home after the discovery of the gun, Mr Sands said, although news of the matter appeared to spread widely on the school’s campus.

“No one was in danger,” Mr Sands said.

Nonetheless, Ms Knowles-Turnquest said teachers at the school “are very much shaken up over it.”

One school official who did not want to be named said the student likely had the weapon, described as an “old, rusty gun,” on him during a general assembly on Monday morning.

Since the incident, the school’s staff members have had multiple meetings to become informed about what happened and to collectively determine how to increase school safety and security.

The incident came just weeks after a stabbing incident at Government High School drew national attention. The incident left three students injured.

Marvin Dames, the former deputy commissioner of police and the Free National Movement’s candidate for Mount Mariah, called for metal detectors to be placed at entrances to every junior and senior high school in the country in the wake of that incident, a proposal that was criticised by National Security Minister Dr Bernard Nottage during last week’s Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) convention.

But Mrs Knowles-Turnquest said yesterday that schools need metal detectors “and more.”

“The fact that you have a weapon on campus tells me you are planning to use it,” she said. “The teachers are very much shaken up over it. They don’t know whether he wanted to shoot a student or a teacher. First the incident at GHS and now this. And there are others that are not reported. It’s symptomatic of what is going on in our country. Until the government of the day takes hold and control of crime in the country we cannot see it decreasing on the school campus. What we see playing out is a reflection of what is happening in the country. We need administrations who will have a zero tolerance approach to even the most minor infractions in the schools. We recommend to the ministry that it look at those administrators who exemplify a zero tolerance approach to violence on campuses and emulate that,” she said.

According to police, “as a result of a professional intervention by school officials,” officers went to the junior high school’s temporary location off Tonique Williams-Darling Highway on Monday, where they uncovered the weapon on school premises.

Comments

yari says...

Sands has his head in the sand claiming no one was in danger. He needs to retire because he is either being deliberately dishonest or he has some cognitive impairment.

Posted 1 February 2017, 11:58 a.m. Suggest removal

licks2 says...

This is not an unusual incident. . .little children brought disabled guns to schools in the past! Usually some adults either disabled the gun. . .hid it for too long and it becomes disabled and they are just left laying around. . .kids bring them to schools as show pieces. As a child I can remember where an adult hid an illegal gun in a vacant lot in our neighborhood. . .one child found the hiding place. . .took me there a showed it to me. . .we picked it up. . .admired it. . .showed it to other kids. . .but we left it where it was. . .we knew that moving the gun was a no no. . .but it was common knowledge in the area among children that the gun was there!

Posted 1 February 2017, 3:13 p.m. Suggest removal

John says...

But yet the commissioner calls the school children "gang members wannabes." but they have access to guns and the ability and the intention to use them.b This is where is starts from..5,6 7 grade.

Posted 1 February 2017, 3:44 p.m. Suggest removal

sheeprunner12 says...

The bigger issue is that the AF Adderley school is not even on its campus ........... it is in Workers House!!!!!!

Posted 1 February 2017, 6:30 p.m. Suggest removal

And if there was not a serious collusion between the PLP government and the teachers and principal union leaders ........... teachers would have been marching downtown today for how BAD things are in the public schools

Posted 1 February 2017, 6:48 p.m. Suggest removal

Alex_Charles says...

and Guess which school AF Adderly feeds into? GHS. See the plantation through the palm trees yet?

Posted 2 February 2017, 8:58 a.m. Suggest removal

Just as I suspect. . .the child found a disabled 9mm hand gun "WITHOUT" firing pin. . .A GUN DAT COULD NOT SHOOT. . .PERIOD! And as a result the child was placed before the court. . .what a waste of time and money. . .the child had a disabled firearm. . .NOBODY WAS EVER IN DANGER! WHERE YOU SUGGEST WE FEED THEM INTO. . .ST ANDREWS? YA ELITIST CLASSISM IS SHOWING ALL OVER THE PLACE!

Posted 2 February 2017, 2:01 p.m. Suggest removal

killemwitdakno says...

Where's the parent's arrest?

Posted 3 February 2017, 10:52 a.m. Suggest removal

No metal detectors. We won't let our school become prisons. Fix the root of the problem.

https://www.thestar.com/life/parent/200…

Posted 3 February 2017, 10:26 a.m. Suggest removal

Should have never taken paddling out of public school. Quit following America, they were already afraid of the brutes and their parents to discipline them, that's why.

Let them have their phones to distract them from making friends with these bad apples.

Let them have their earphones whilst studying so they'll choose to to study instead of communicate.

Let photos with gang , drug and violent paraphernalia in photos constitute code of conduct violation.

Make clear and mesh backpacks mandatory and have hall monitors looking at bags as students pass.

Have the teachers STAND OUTSIDE THEIR CLASSROOM DOORS WATCHING STUDENTS DUIRNG PASSING.

Have higher level staff present, watching and interacting with the kids whenever they assemble.

The teachers know student relations better than anyone, report such to the principle and have class changes to separate students.

Send students to alternative school immediately after an altercation.

Have the sports players meet grade requirements or they can't play.

Require after school coach mentorship for ill behaved or suspected gang associates. Require drug and std tests.

Limit airtime of violently rated content on TV. Ban selling of teen, mature, and adult rated video games to underaged gamers.

Separate the culture clash. Creole classes on different rotations.

Have an on school therapist or psychologist.

Morals, character building, gratitude, respect, integrity, and behavior ought to be the number 1 lesson. teach HAPPINESS AND STOP SPEAKING SO NEGATIVELY!

Have assembly once a week.

Don't have the 7th and 8th graders mingle with the other grades. Their passing time should be separate.

GET SERIOUS

Posted 3 February 2017, 10:47 a.m. Suggest removal

thephoenix562 says...

A serving District Education Officer( DEO) in Grand Bahama years ago was charged for having an illegal handgun years ago.Wonder of all wonders there was no firing pin so it was incapable of discharging a projectile thus case dismissed.Same story here.

Posted 3 February 2017, 12:06 p.m. Suggest removal