Boy Faces Expulsion Over BB Gun : Schools: The Sylmar youth, 11, brandished an unloaded weapon. He could become the youngest L.A. student to be ejected for such an offense.

The Los Angeles Unified School District’s tougher gun rule, enacted after a fatal campus shooting, may lead to the expulsion of an 11-year-old boy who threatened a classmate with an unloaded BB pistol at a Sylmar elementary school. The student could become the youngest ever expelled by the district for such an offense, school authorities said Monday.

The incident occurred at Herrick Avenue School on Friday, just four days after a teen-ager was fatally shot at Reseda High School and four weeks after the district toughened its weapons policy by recommending expulsion for any student caught with a gun on campus.

In response to the shooting death of a student at Fairfax High School this year, the school board revised its weapons policy Feb. 1 to mandate expulsion for all students caught with guns--including air guns, stun guns and non-shooting replicas--on campus. Previously, students under 16 who were caught with weapons or who had disciplinary problems were subject to transfers to other schools, a practice that has come under criticism because the slain Reseda High youth and his alleged assailant had been transferred from other schools.

If removed from the school system by the Board of Education, the Sylmar student--whose name was withheld because of his age--would be barred from attending any district school for at least two semesters.

Some district officials expressed concern over the effect of expelling such a young student. “Eleven is just very young, and I’m not sure what will happen with this kid,” said Linda Wilson, of the district’s student discipline proceedings office.

According to police and school officials, the boy pointed the weapon at a girl in his sixth-grade class Friday morning and warned her not to tell anyone about the gun, which authorities said looks like a .45-caliber semiautomatic pistol. It was unclear whether the boy had been showing off the gun--which could not be loaded because of a missing part--to classmates or whether the girl first saw it in his desk, school officials said.

“He pulled it out, pointed it at her and told her that he was going to kill her and her family,” said Los Angeles Police Sgt. Gene Fretheim. “It’s very serious.”

The girl notified her teacher, who removed the gun from the boy’s desk when he was in another part of the classroom and stuffed it into her raincoat, Herrick Avenue Principal Ron Felt said. A student was sent to get Felt, who brought the boy to his office and called in school police.

Officers arrested the boy, then released him to his parents, which Fretheim said indicates that the child probably has no previous record or a relatively minor one. The investigation has been turned over to Los Angeles detectives, who will interview the student this morning to determine whether to seek charges in Juvenile Court.

The boy was suspended from school for five days and did not attend class Monday as school officials began investigating the incident and compiling background information on the student. Felt said the child’s parents were unaware that their son owned the BB gun.

Despite the school district’s hardened stance on guns on campus, officials said state law grants Felt, as principal, first say over whether the student should be expelled. If he recommends expulsion, a district disciplinary committee must uphold his recommendation before the Board of Education, which wields ultimate authority.

Since the adoption four weeks ago of the toughened expulsion policy, the board has expelled 13 teen-agers--including four on Monday--for bringing guns to school. In January, 16 youngsters were dropped from the system, including a 12-year-old middle school student who carried a BB gun.

The school district has also instituted random campus weapons checks using metal detectors, but the program involves only junior and senior high schools.

Board member Mark Slavkin said he would vote to expel the Sylmar boy if the disciplinary committee recommends it.

“It’s important that we maintain a zero tolerance for any sort of gun,” he said. “Students cannot, should not, must not bring any sort of weapon to school, and the only way to back that up and make it meaningful to students is to have this straight expulsion policy: ‘Don’t bring a gun, because if you get caught, you’re in deep, deep trouble.’ ”

However, colleague Jeff Horton, who voted against the toughened policy, said younger students “should be given an alternative placement away from the regular school site and not just released to the streets.”

“It’s not good for the community and the other students to have these kids unsupervised and unaccountable to anybody,” he said.

The issue of school violence dominated discussion at a school board meeting Monday, when members approved the formation of an emergency task force with the region’s top law enforcement officials.

Within a month, the task force--which will include Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti and City Atty. James Hahn--will release proposals aimed at stemming school violence. The group will review recommendations put forward in a 1990 district report that had recommended widespread use of metal detectors and anti-violence courses, changes that were only implemented in the last two months after the fatal shootings on district campuses.

In an impassioned speech to board members, Kelly Gilmore, a friend of slain Reseda High School student Michael Ensley, implored board members to find “sensible solutions to this monstrous problem” of school violence.

He said that violence “is not just a Reseda problem . . . it’s a household problem, a community problem, a city problem. . . . It’s been swept under the rug and viewed as an inner-city thing.”

In a related action, the board ordered Supt. Sid Thompson to convene another task force to begin revamping the district’s policy on opportunity transfers. Critics say the practice only shifts discipline cases to campuses where they pose a hidden danger to others. Many such transfer students drop out.

“Something is wrong and we need to examine this thoroughly,” said school board member Julie Korenstein. “We can’t keep shuffling these kids around the district and never solve the problem.”

Times education writer Stephanie Chavez contributed to this story.