Two teens charged in bulletsat-school incident
WOONSOCKET – The discovery of approximately 10 rounds of small-caliber ammunition in a boy’s lavatory at Woonsocket Middle School’s Hamlet building on Feb. 16 led to the arrest Tuesday of two 13-year-old boys who are students at the facility.
Police Chief Thomas F. Oates III said one of the boys took the ammunition from a relative’s house in North Smithfield, brought it into the school and gave two rounds to the other boy. Sometime before classes were dismissed, the boy who brought the bullets into the school discarded the rest in the bathroom because he feared his friend might report him to school authorities.
The boy who brought the bullets to school is facing charges of possession of ammunition on school grounds and disorderly conduct. He appeared for an emergency arraignment Wednesday in Family Court after being ordered to home confinement
the night before. The other boy is charged with one count of possession of ammunition on school grounds and his case will be adjudicated by the local juvenile hearing board.
A janitor discovered the
ammunition in the first-floor lavatory around the same time students were being dismissed for the day – two days after a mass shooting left 17 dead at Marjory Stoneham Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., an incident that’s reignited a headline-generating, national culture war between advocates for gun rights and proponents of new restrictions on firearms ownership.
The janitor’s find prompted school officials to put both middle school buildings on lockdown as dozens of city police officers, including a heavily armed tactical squad, conducted a room-byroom search of the complex. Some students had already left the twin middle school buildings, but others, along with school personnel, were still inside and they were unable to leave until the campus was declared safe, some two hours later.
The boys’ arrests were the latest to result from the investigation of the incident – on Feb. 20 police arrested an eighth-grade girl who allegedly yelled “school shooter” on the Kendrick Avenue Pedestrian Bridge as teachers were routinely escorting students from school. The 14-year-old girl made the comments as a joke after seeing a classmate reach into a backpack on the footbridge, but the police say the timing – two days after the Florida shooting, amid a local search prompted by the discovery of live ammunition – brought an unnecessary sense of panic to the situation, so they charged her with disorderly conduct.
One policeman likened her actions to yelling “fire” in a crowded theater.
Praising teachers and students for their help in identifying the source of the ammunition at WMS, Oates said he’s pleased the investigation revealed that the two boys did not have access to a firearm and never posed a threat to fellow students or school personnel.
Basically, Oates said, the boy who took the ammunition to school did so because he thought it would impress a classmate.
“I’m just glad we found out that’s what it was and it wasn’t something other than a 13-year-old making a bad decision to bring ammunition to school to impress another individual,” the chief said. “There was no plot, no threat that anything else was going to be done with the ammunition, just a simple case of a young boy making a bad decision to bring ammunition into school, which can’t be done.”
There were firearms in the North Smithfield house where the ammunition originated, but they were kept in a safe place accessible only
by the owner, according to the chief.
Police have since recovered all the ammunition that was brought into the middle school, including two rounds from a home in Woonsocket.
Getting rid of the ammunition in the wastebasket was supposed to be the first boy’s way of plausibly denying he had anything to do with bringing it to school in case his friend reported him, but that never happened. Instead the other boy took the ammunition home with him and tried to keep what happened at school that day a secret.
While he declined to go into detail, Detective Sgt. Matt Ryan of the WPD’s juvenile bureau said that despite the boy’s intentions, word about the source of the ammunition leaked out. The police consider his actions less egregious than those of his classmate, but still serious enough for consideration by the local juvenile hearing board.
“That student should have notified somebody and we’re trying to send a message,” said Ryan. “There are implications for that, potentially endangering staff and students – there has to be consequences. We’re living in a different time, a different age.”
Though teachers were the first to contact police with the identity of a possible suspect, Ryan praised “a couple of students who were instrumental in getting that information” to school personnel.
Juveniles who are adjudicated in Family Court are normally released to the custody of their parents or guardians for some time pri-
or to arraignment. Ryan said there was cause to bring the boy in quickly for an emergency appearance before a judge, but he declined to elaborate, citing juvenile confidentiality.
For similar reasons, he said the police would be unable to share details of how the judge handles the case or the final resolution.
School Supt. Patrick J. McGee couldn’t be reached, but a spokeswoman said the Woonsocket Education Department couldn’t say whether either of the boys would be suspended, expelled or otherwise disciplined for their alleged misconduct. She, too, cited student privacy laws.
McGee had issued a post on the WED’s Facebook page alerting parents about the discovery of the ammunition and subsequent lockdown within hours of the incident on Feb. 16.
He also issued an update about a week later, explaining that WED Facilities and Securities Director Peter Fontaine and Ryan met on Feb. 20 to review the district’s safety protocols. The two also met with McGee and school principals on Tuesday to further review procedures.
“As you know, our first priority is to assure the safety of all students and staff and we will continue to work closely with the Woonsocket Police Department to maintain safe and secure schools,” McGee wrote.