Dimond High student with BB gun prompts lockdown

Published: January 8, 2013 Updated 9 minutes ago
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Anchorage Police responded to Dimond High for a report of a student with a gun on Tuesday morning, Jan. 8, 2013. Officers found a BB gun in a backpack and took the student into custody.

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    Dimond High student with BB gun prompts lockdown

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By KYLE HOPKINS and JULIA O'MALLEY — Anchorage Daily News

ANCHORAGE — Police say a 16-year-old Dimond High School student pointed a BB gun resembling a handgun at another student Tuesday morning, prompting police to swarm the school and arrest the teen. The South Anchorage campus was temporarily placed on lockdown.

The student is in custody and faces criminal charges, police said.

Fifteen officers arrived at the school just after 9:35 a.m. and evacuated a classroom where the BB gun -- made to look like a Glock .40-caliber handgun -- was found in a backpack, according to an Anchorage Police Department spokeswoman.

School resumed as usual just after 10 a.m., said Anchorage School District spokeswoman Heidi Embley. “The entire thing lasted about 15 minutes.”

The student with the BB gun pointed the gun at another student, who waited about an hour before telling school officials, police said.

The school administrator, following ASD procedure, put the school on lockdown by locking classroom doors, Embley said. “You close the curtains. You turn off the lights. You go into hiding.”

Officers raced to the school, arriving "within about a minute" of the first report to Anchorage police, said department spokeswoman Anita Shell.

Police found the student in a classroom with 17 classmates at about 9:45 a.m. The other students were cleared from the room as officers made contact with the student with the BB gun.

Police were questioning the student at Dimond High Tuesday morning, Shell said. He may face charges of making threats, fourth-degree weapons misconduct and second-degree assault, she said.

She declined to name the student because he is a juvenile.

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