Student Concealed Pellet Gun, Officials Say

A student at Hueneme High School was arrested on campus on Wednesday after allegedly carrying a concealed pellet gun into his reading class, officials said.

The 15-year-old sophomore was booked on suspicion of possessing a replica handgun on campus after the 9:30 a.m. incident. He was taken into custody and placed in Juvenile Hall.

Still shaken by last month’s fatal police shooting of an Oxnard teenager who had taken a hostage on campus, school and police officials lured the boy from class before arresting him, said Sylvia Jackson, an assistant principal at Hueneme High.

Jackson said the Oxnard Union High School District’s policy on weapons is clear.

“Even though it’s not a real gun, you are eligible for expulsion,” she said. “It was a stupid thing to do.”

The gun--a facsimile of a semiautomatic handgun--was not loaded. However, it is capable of shooting small pellets that can do the same damage as a low-caliber handgun, said Cmdr. Tom Chronister of the Oxnard Police Department.

“There have been children and adults who have been killed by these things,” Chronister said. “The bad thing is that kids don’t think it’s a real gun.”

District Supt. Bill Studt said the student probably will be transferred to Gateway Community School in Camarillo after a hearing.

“He will not set his eyes back on campus,” Studt said. “He needs to find a new school to go to.”

The gun was discovered when the boy hugged a female classmate, who felt it under his clothes, according to school officials. She alerted campus security officers, who contacted Oxnard police. The boy was arrested in a corridor after being told by his teacher to go to the school library.