Police report details fight, discover of gun at New Milford HS

NEW MILFORD — Recently released police documents reveal new details about the events that led to the discovery of a loaded “ghost” gun on the New Milford High School campus last week.

According to the New Milford Police Department report tied to the arrest of two other students that day, obtained by Hearst Connecticut through a Freedom of Information Act request, the high school went into lockdown the morning of April 26 after a parent called and stated that a student had a gun in his backpack.

Additional officers responded to the school and the 17-year-old student was quickly located inside the building.

An officer conducted a patdown search of the student but didn’t find a weapon, according to the report. Police said the student’s backpack was also searched, but no weapon was found in there either.

After obtaining consent, police searched the 17-year-old’s vehicle in the student parking lot and found a “a black P80 polymer frame firearm with a Live Free Armory slide/barrel” under the driver’s seat, according to the police report.

Police said the gun “was not in a holster or secured in any way,” lacked an identifiable serial number and had 10 9mm caliber rounds in the magazine.

After photographing and securing the gun, police learned about a physical altercation between the 17-year-old and two other students, ages 18 and 19, in a second floor bathroom earlier that morning.

According to the New Milford police report, the fight stemmed from an incident days earlier, during which the 19-year-old allegedly pointed a gun at someone while they were hanging out in a car outside the school.

The 19-year-old allegedly approached a student in the bathroom and said, “Why are you telling people I pointed a gun at you?”

Due to redactions in the police report, it’s unclear what the student said in response — but the report says the physical altercation started after the 19-year-old punched another student in the face.

According to the report, the student who was punched told police another physical altercation broke out near a staircase after he saw the 19-year-old and 18-year-old later that morning and the fight was broken up by an administrator.

Police said they obtained a video of the fight in the second floor bathroom, which showed the 19-year-old and 18-year-old students committing physical assault.

Lt. Lee Grabner confirmed last week that the gun and bathroom fight incidents were related.

“It’s kind of all related in terms of the individuals,” he said. “After the fight occurred, the information about the gun came up, and so the investigation branched out to that.”

The 18- and 19-year-old students were each charged with third-degree assault and breach of peace and held on $1,000 bond. Their cases were referred to the Litchfield Judicial District Courthouse

at Torrington.

The 17-year-old was referred to juvenile court in Waterbury and charged with criminal possession of a firearm and possession of a ghost gun.

Ghost guns are privately made firearms, often built at home with kits, that have grown in popularity nationwide in recent years. “This was a gun that was obtained on the streets without the parents’ knowledge,” Grabner said Thursday. “The parents have no criminal liability when they don’t have any knowledge of what their child is doing.”

Grabner said the 17-year-old told police he “got it from a friend.”