13-year-old boy aims rifle at fellow students in Spanaway
Oct 28, 2015, 2:50 PM | Updated: 3:31 pm
A 13-year-old boy at Spanaway’s Cedarcrest Middle School was quickly taken out of class after he reportedly pointed a rifle at his fellow students.
But the job for deputies with the Pierce County Sheriff’s Department isn’t over. While authorities have the suspected seventh grade student and one .22 caliber rifle in custody, there are more guns unaccounted for.
“We recovered [the rifle], along with a backpack with 300 rounds of ammo, and ammo to other guns,” said Det. Ed Troyer with the Pierce County Sheriff’s Department. “Turns out, he had stolen the gun and the ammo from his grandfather’s gun safe.”
But that is not all the 13 year old allegedly stole. Other guns and ammo are also missing, and deputies are still searching for them.
“At this point we are still looking for a .44 caliber handgun and another rifle,” Troyer said. “We don’t know where those are at.”
“He is not being cooperative; he’s giving us multiple stories,” he added.
Detectives do not believe anyone else is involved in the incident. Troyer said the boy acted alone when he aimed a rifle at two other 13 year olds at a bus stop before class at Cedarcrest.
“Nobody is injured, but we do have two frightened students who had a firearm aimed at them,” Troyer said.
“We get reports of kids with guns, but in this particular case we had somebody who actually displayed a rifle and pointed it at students,” he added. “They did the right thing. They went to school and reported it. The school was able to the get the suspect kid out of his classroom and into an office at 8 o’clock this morning and called our deputies.”
But it wasn’t easy for Cedarcrest staff to take the student into custody.
“The kid tried to flee, but he didn’t make it out of school,” Troyer said. “They were able to detain him and get him into custody. Turns out, he had a rifle, which he didn’t bring to school.”
The student left the rifle and backpack full of ammo in the woods near the bus stop where he aimed at other boys. That’s where deputies found the stolen items.
The sheriff’s department is holding the 13-year-old boy on two counts of felony harassment and one count of a minor in possession of a firearm, which is also a felony.
