Cache & carry
Charter kid found sniper bullets, gave them to pals
AN OVERRIDING theme dominatedthe movingmemorial service for Nicholas Scoppetta: unabashedadmiration.
Two former mayors led a parade of friends, family and former coworkers, who gathered Wednesdaytohonorthe perpetually modest public servant who resurrected the FDNY after 9/11, rescued city kids and chased crooked copss with the KnappCommission.
“He would not have been who he was, he could not have achieved all he achieved without being a New Yorker,” Mayor de Blasio said. “But we literally wouldn’t be THE STUDENT who caused a Success Academy in Harlem to go into lockdown brought a stash of more than a dozen bullets to the high-profile charter school, a police source said Wednesday.
New details about the frightening find that prompted Success Academy Harlem West on W. 114th St. to go into lockdown Tuesday revealed that the student found the bullets on the way to school. He then handed them off to two fellow students, a school spokesman said.
An automated call obtained by the Daily News from a school parent had Principal Khari Shabazz alerting parents to the alarming discovery that led to the suspension of three students. the city we are today without Nick Scoppetta — that’s how extraordinaryhis reach andhis impact was.
“We can say this: The l light he lit in our city will n never be extinguished.”
Scoppetta (left), who s spent four decades in p public service for h his hometown, d died last week at 8 83.
Former Mayor Micha Michael Bloomberg choked up as he invoked the movie based on Scoppetta’s work in rooting out NYPD graft: “May God bless you, Nick. You’re a true prince of the city.”
“All scholars are safe,” Shabazz said. “I’m calling to let you know about a safety issue. Earlier today, two bullets were found in two of our classrooms. We immediately issued a soft lockdown and called 911. Dur- ing their investiga- tion the police found additional bullets in a scholar’s s locker.”
The police source said the lockdown was enforced after a 12-year-oldd student found a .223-caliber bullet ini a room on the fifth floor of the school.
The .223 is considered reliable for long-range accuracy and has been used by military snipers.
The principal then learned that a 14-year-old student had a bullet, and that a third student — also 12 — had bullets in his bookbag.
Police found 11 more .223 bullets inside a locker and yet another in the same fifth-floor room.
The three students were questioned and charged as juveniles, t the source said.
“These children e engaged inappropriately with items one child found on the way to school, and they are facing severe consequences for it,” a school spokesman said.
It wasn’t clear whath t chargesh thet students face, though the Success spokesman said their records could be expunged when they turn 15 or 16.
“There was no reason to believe the scholars were ever in danger or that there was a weapon in the building or there was an intent to actually use a weapon at school,” Shabazz said in the recording.
The principal urged parents to talk to their kids about alerting an authority figure to any signs of weapons in school.
“We also feel strongly scholars have an absolute obligation to come forward when they see or hear about a potential safety issue like this in our school community,” Shabazz said in the recording.
Earlier this month, three guns were found at city public schools in just one week (News front page, inset).
“I find it appalling that some parents are unable to micromanage their children. The growing trend of kids with access to guns is deplorable,” said the parent who provided the recording to The News.