Boy, 7, Brings Gun to School; Policy Reviewed

Faced with a 7-year-old--the youngest student ever caught on a Los Angeles Unified School District campus with a gun--school board members agreed Monday to consider an exception to their strict policy of expelling all gun-toting students.

The second-grader was turned in by other students at his San Fernando Valley school on Jan. 18, according to reports provided to the board on Monday. When confronted by school administrators, he said he thought the gun was a toy and that his father had given it to him, said Hector Madrigal, the district’s director of student discipline proceedings.

Madrigal said the gun was not loaded and there was no indication the boy had threatened anyone with it.

In agreeing to consider an exception to expulsion at a special meeting March 13, some board members said it is the boy’s parents who should be punished, if his story turns out to be true.

“The problem here (may be) the supervision that the parents . . . were

not providing to this child,” Victoria Castro said, asking fellow board members to let the boy remain at another school, where he was transferred following the incident.

Madrigal said the district has no authority to take action against the parents, but did routinely report the situation to Los Angeles police. Police were unable to comment on details of the case since the district would not disclose to a Times reporter the boy’s name or school. But a watch commander said that the parents could be held liable.

“It depends on whether or not the kid was being truthful,” said Lt. Nick Zingo, of the Police Department’s North Hollywood Division. “If I were the investigating officer, I’d have to ask myself: Am I looking at a 7-year-old who’s a member of a local gang . . . and thinks like a 19-year-old? Or am I looking at a 7-year-old who really doesn’t know right from wrong?”

The boy’s young age raises a quandary for Los Angeles Unified decision-makers, who adopted a zero-tolerance stance toward guns after two deadly shootings at district high schools--Reseda and Fairfax--in 1993. The district policy predated enactment of similar state and federal laws.

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Although transferring a student to another school remains an option under the tougher policy, virtually all students caught with firearms since then have been expelled, Madrigal said. The only exceptions have been for students caught with non-lethal guns, such as toys and BB guns.

Students expelled from the district under the tougher weapons policy, who made up most of the 166 most serious expulsions last year, may not reapply for admission for more than a semester.

Board member Jeff Horton, who has frequently spoken against such a rush to expel, seized Monday’s meeting as a chance to reiterate his opinion that kids should be rehabilitated, not rejected.

“I’m glad that 7 seems too young . . . to put kids on the street, even though they did a terrible thing,” Horton said. “Thirteen- and 14-year-olds are also too young.”

But board President Mark Slavkin said he was torn between compassion for the second-grader--who is the same age as Slavkin’s son--and worries about watering down district policy. Slavkin asked district staff to research the incident and provide more complete information next week.

“Faced with this striking a case, we should be armed with as much information as possible,” Slavkin said, “because we will be second-guessed no matter what we do.”