Student, 13, With Gun at School Arrested : Weapons: School officials suspend the Niguel Hills Middle School boy and recommend his expulsion.

Sheriff’s deputies have arrested a 13-year-old middle school student who brought a loaded handgun to school after another student allegedly threatened him, authorities said Tuesday.

Students at Niguel Hills Middle School alerted campus officials Monday about the 13-year-old boy, who told sheriff’s deputies that he was carrying a .22-caliber handgun to protect himself, according to school officials and Sheriff’s Lt. Dick Olson. The student claimed that he had received threats about two weeks ago from another 13-year-old student.

The school’s vice principal confiscated the gun and called sheriff’s deputies, who arrested the student later that day on suspicion of carrying a loaded firearm on school grounds. The student, whose name was not released because of his age, was released a few hours later to a parent, Olson said.

Olson said deputies were still investigating the circumstances surrounding the alleged threats.

The 13-year-old student brought the gun from home and told other students that he was carrying it, said Jacqueline Price, a spokeswoman for the Capistrano Unified School District, which includes the middle school. Officials at Niguel Hills declined comment Tuesday.

School officials, following the district’s informal “zero-tolerance” policy for weapons and drugs, immediately suspended the student who carried the gun and recommended his expulsion, Price said. The school district’s Board of Trustees, who make final decisions on expulsions, could hold an expulsion hearing as early as two weeks from now, Price said.

“We don’t want to see (weapons) become a real problem in the Capistrano Unified School District, and so we have taken a hard line on this issue,” Price said.

Weapons on the South County district’s campuses are “not common, but we have had a few instances in the past,” Price said. “We see it as a growing concern in schools across the country.”

Monday’s incident comes a little more than one week after a student was suspended for carrying a knife at San Clemente High School, Price said. An expulsion hearing is pending for that student.

So far this school year, three students have been expelled for carrying weapons onto high school or middle school campuses in the district. Last school year, the school district expelled six students from two high schools for weapons possession.

The principal at Niguel Hills sent home notes with students Tuesday explaining the incident the day before, Price said. A psychologist will be available at the school beginning today to deal with any questions that students might have, she said.

Sheila Benecke, a school district trustee and the parent of a 13-year-old student at Niguel Hills, said she is “concerned that a child would be able to get a hold of a gun, ever. And then that he could take it out where he could hurt others.”

“I see that one thing we need to do is remind students that they can come to school authorities and understand that there are procedures and ways to solve problems,” she added.

Mildred Pagelow, another trustee with the Capistrano Unified School District, said she was encouraged that some middle school students told campus officials about the gun.

“This is a good sign. It isn’t snitching because the life they save could be their own,” she said.

Two months ago in Los Angeles, a 16-year-old high school student was killed during an accidental shooting in a classroom by a 15-year-old student, the first fatal shooting on a campus in the nation’s second largest district. Officials said after the shooting that other high school students knew that the 15-year-old was carrying a gun but didn’t report it.

Last month a Reseda High School student was shot and killed in a school building.

In the wake of the first shooting, Los Angeles Unified School District officials set up a telephone line for students to make anonymous reports of people who carry weapons on campus. Pagelow said she supports the creation of such a reporting system in the Capistrano Unified School District, which has about 30,000 students.

Times correspondent Anna Cekola contributed to this story.