3 Burbank Students Arrested in Weapons Crackdown

Three boys detained at schools this week were the first to be caught in a tough new Burbank Police Department policy requiring the automatic arrest of anyone caught with a weapon on campus.

In effect since Monday, the new policy requires police to refer any student found with a weapon to juvenile court, said Burbank Police Sgt. Robert Brode. Previously, police could issue informal warnings to suspects.

“It won’t matter,” Brode said. “If it’s a pocket knife or a Swiss army knife, if a kid is arrested for having a knife on campus it doesn’t matter.”

Arthur Pierce, superintendent of Burbank Unified School District, welcomed the change.

The school district will continue to make its own determination of how to deal with offenders, who can be expelled or sent to one of two community schools with faculty members specially trained to handle students with behavior problems.

If students are first sent to juvenile court, then any later problems could amount to a violation of probation, Pierce said.

“It gives us a stronger handle on the youngster,” Pierce said.

On Tuesday morning, a knife with 3 1/2-inch blade was confiscated from a 13-year-old John Muir Middle School student by Janine Williams, a school dean. The boy had used the knife to scratch the wooden door of one of the restrooms, Brode said. School authorities were tipped off by another student.

On Monday, Lynn Perske, a vice principal at Burbank High School, was searching a backpack of a 17-year-old identified gang member for graffiti tools when she found a pair of nunchakus, Brode said. Nunchakus are a martial arts weapon made up of two sticks joined by a chain.

Also on Monday, Frank Parrienello, a vice principal at the David Starr Jordan Middle School, acting on a tip from a student, found a knife with a four-inch blade and a total length of nine-inches hidden in a 12-year-old boy’s gym locker.

All three were given citations to appear in juvenile court, then released to their families.

When the students are cited, the police generally send the cases through the district attorney’s office requesting that court-ordered probation be sought, rather than placement in a juvenile detention home.

Before, police could also issue warnings, or place offenders on informal, voluntary probation for six months, Brode said. This gave the police flexibility in dealing with less serious cases.

On Tuesday night, the school board expelled a student caught with a BB gun at the John Muir Middle School and then decided to suspend that action in favor of sending him to the Allen Avenue Community School. Last week, the board expelled a Burbank High School student for having a knife with a 2 1/2-inch blade on campus. In another incident involving a screwdriver, one student was hurt in a fight among three students.

The school district has purchased metal detectors for random searches on campus as soon as the school board can set a policy. The district is also setting up three hot lines--in English, Spanish and Armenian--for students to report weapons on school grounds. The recent incidents of violence in Los Angeles schools have also focused the issue, and students are now more likely to report weapons, Brode said.

“They’re the ones that have to go to school too,” Brode said.