7-year old New York boy brings loaded gun to school in backpack

A 7-year old boy brought a loaded .22-caliber pistol and a flare gun to school in his backpack, in Queens, New York.  His mother found out, and initially tried to hide it, but then alerted school officials when she learned that one of the guns had been given to another boy.  The school was put on lockdown until the guns were retrieved.

The .22 pistol was loaded with 10 rounds, and there was another bag of extra ammo in the backpack.

It's unclear how the boy got the guns, or how they had been stored at home.

From an article:

The boy, a second grader, arrived at Wave Preparatory Elementary School in Far Rockaway about 7:30 a.m. About two hours later, the boy’s mother learned that he had the gun and she raced to the school. She told administrators that she needed to take him out of school for a dentist appointment, Mr. Browne said. 

“Initially, it would appear that her intention was just to get the gun back and get it out of the school,” Mr. Browne said. 

But after the mother asked her son if he had a gun in his bag, he told her that he had given the weapon to a classmate, prompting her to alert the principal. The school was placed on lockdown just after 10 a.m., Mr. Browne said. 

Two school safety officers assigned to Wave Preparatory went to a second-floor classroom and found the other student. Upon searching his bag, the officers found a flare gun, but not the .22-caliber pistol, which they discovered moments later in the first child’s backpack, along with the ammunition and loaded gun clip, Mr. Browne said. The police believe that the flare gun, which was unloaded, may also have come from the first boy’s home. 

Investigators were trying to determine exactly how the pistol ended up in the boy’s backpack and how his mother learned it was there. Mr. Browne said that whether the boy’s mother would face charges was “still under review.” 

The boy has two older half brothers, ages 21 and 27, Mr. Browne said. 

On Thursday night, two police officers stood at the top of the stairs inside an apartment building, listed as the mother’s address, above a barbershop on Cornaga Avenue. 

Earlier in the day, students at Wave Preparatory described a nervous few hours that began when the principal went on the intercom to say that the school was being locked down and that they were to remain in their classrooms. 

“I thought we were going to get killed,” said Javier Ferrufino, an 11-year-old in fifth grade. “We went to the back of the classroom. I hid with my friend behind some computers.”

Every gun in the hands of a child must first pass through the hands of an adult.