Two Westside students held after gun hand-off

Two Arkansas 17-year-olds were arrested Thursday after one took a revolver to their campus in the Westside Consolidated School District and gave it to the other, authorities said.

The exchange happened at the high school campus, Craighead County sheriff’s office Chief Deputy Justin Rolland said.

A student at the high school saw the exchange occur Thursday morning in a bathroom, according to a post by Superintendent Scott Gauntt on the district’s Facebook page. The student reported the gun to the campus’ head of security, and the school was placed on lockdown.

Law enforcement secured the gun and took the student into custody, according to the post. Rolland said Thursday afternoon that two students were under arrest but charges had not been finalized.

Rolland did not explain what the students intended to do with the gun, if anything.

No one was hurt, and the campus returned to normal activities before the school day ended.

The Westside district’s middle school was the site of a shooting March 24, 1998, that left four students and a teacher dead and 10 others wounded after two students, 11-year-old Andrew Golden and 13-year-old Mitchell Johnson, opened fire on campus.

Johnson hid in a brushy area at the edge of the school while Golden pulled a fire alarm. As students exited the school, the two opened fire from the brushy area with high-powered hunting rifles taken from the house of Golden’s grandfather.