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Four in custody after BB gun found at Volney Rogers school
By Joe Gorman
YOUNGSTOWN
Police found a BB gun and took four students into custody Wednesday morning at Volney Rogers Discovery School.
William Morvay, director of security for the district, said a student noticed another student with a weapon and notified the principal, who then isolated the student and called police and school security.
When police arrived, they found out after questioning the student that he was part of a group passing the gun around in an attempt to hide it, which led to three other students being taken into custody.
The students are all seventh- or eighth-graders, Morvay said.
The BB gun is a handgun that looks like a Colt semiautomatic pistol. Reports said the orange safety plug on the weapon, which denotes it is a BB gun and not a real gun, was removed.
Morvay said the students who were questioned were isolated immediately from the rest of the school, and the staff and school security on hand acted very quickly once they received the alert.
“They were quick to act,” Morvay said.
Reports said officers working school security were called to the 2400 S. Schenley Ave. school about 8 a.m. after the student alerted staff that there was another student carrying a gun. Reports said the witnesses told police they had seen the gun in the school’s gymnasium on another student.
Officers and school staff were able to find out by questioning students that the gun had been passed around in the gym and searched a locker without finding it until a student told police he gave the gun to someone else, and the gun was in their locker. That locker then was searched, and the gun was found in a backpack inside that locker, reports said.
All four students were charged with illegal conveyance of deadly weapons or dangerous ordnance on school property and inducing panic. Reports said they were taken to the Martin P. Joyce Juvenile Justice Center.