Prop gun sparks high school lockdown

Two teens arrested after video was posted online showing weapon being handled inside Platt High

A video of a gun being handled inside a Meriden high school that was posted to social media Tuesday morning prompted a lockdown and large police response before authorities realized the weapon was a prop gun, a school official said.

No one was injured; two students were arrested and more face discipline, said Geoff Kenyon, assistant principal of Platt High School. Classes resumed after the morning incident, he said.

The students who were arrested are boys, ages 15 and 16, Kenyon said. They were charged as juveniles with breach of peace.

According to Kenyon, administrators called police when a video showing a student brandishing a gun with another student inside the school popped up on social media. The school was immediately placed into lockdown, and students having to stay in place and hide from what they believed was a student in the building with a gun.

Parents rushed to the school, some in tears, according to television news reports.

School officials called Meriden police, and officers surrounded the school at 220 Coe Ave., Kenyon said. Administrators also called federal and state law enforcement agencies, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the Connecticut

State Police.

Police worked with school staff to try to find the armed student through internal surveillance cameras and other means. They learned that the two students were in the building but had not shown up for their morning classes, Kenyon said.

Officers began what Kenyon described as a “methodical” search of the building, and police found the two students — described as “suspects” in a news release — in the auditorium with another group of students, he said.

They also found the gun, which they learned was a prop gun, Kenyon said.

In Hamden, a 17-year-old student was arrested in October after he brought a loaded gun onto the Hamden High School campus.

And on Monday, a 14-year-old Hamden High School student was stabbed in the back and a 13-yearold taken into custody after a fight outside Hamden High School. The wounded student, a freshman, is listed in stable condition, Hamden police said Tuesday.