Santa Cruz Middle-Schooler Brings Stolen AND Fully Loaded Gun To School

Police in Santa Cruz arrested a 13-year-old boy Thursday after officials at a middle school found a stolen, loaded Argentine-made pistol in the suspect’s backpack, a police official reported.

The boy, who is not being identified, was booked into the Santa Cruz County Juvenile Hall on suspicion of possessing a firearm on school grounds and possessing a stolen firearm, Deputy Police Chief Steve Clark said.

The firearm was a .38 caliber semi-automatic Bersa handgun with a fully-loaded magazine and a bullet in the chamber, for a total of eight rounds. It had been reported stolen in Hot Springs, Arkansas in 2012, according to Clark.

“It’s not a quality gun,” Clark said.

The child’s family had moved to Santa Cruz recently from Arkansas and police have spoken to the boy’s father but he has not provided any solid answers about the gun, Clark said.

On Thursday, a Santa Cruz police school resource officer went to Mission Hill Middle School at 425 King St. on a report that a loaded gun was seized from a student’s backpack on campus, Clark said.

Students at the school earlier had informed a teacher about seeing a firearm in the student’s backpack and the teacher took the backpack to the school’s front office, police reported.

A campus supervisor removed the firearm and secured it and the boy was summoned and detained in the principal’s office until police arrived to arrest him, Clark said.

Police learned that the same student also brought the gun to the school on Wednesday, Clark said. Investigators do not know how the gun made it to Santa Cruz because the 13-year-old himself has refused to provide information about it, according to Clark.

Detectives plan to enter the firearm into the National Integrated Ballistics Identification System to compare the gun with others used in reported crimes, police said.

The process of entering the gun into the IBIS system will require firing the weapon and examining the “fingerprints” left on the bullets and shell casings, which will take a couple of months to complete, Clark said.

Also this week in the North Bay in Dixon, a student was near the high school campus with a loaded gun and shot at police. Story here: Update on Wednesday’s Gunfire in Dixon: Student Arrested After Exchanging Shots With Officer.

--Bay City News