Student who hid ammo at Gallup HS confesses

Copyright © 2008
Gallup Independent
By Gaye Brown de Alvarez
Staff writer

GALLUP — The individual who brought ammunition to Gallup High School Thursday was apprehended, according to a news release issued from the Gallup McKinley County School Superintendent Ray Arsenault.

The student was turned in when a CrimeStoppers tip gave his name. The student was interrogated, said Lt. Rick White of the Gallup Police Department, and he admitted he had stashed the two boxes of ammunition after he looked in his backpack, which he had taken on a weekend outing with his father, and saw the ammunition was still in there. He had forgotten to take the boxes out and became scared that he would be discovered because of the school district’s “zero tolerance” policy for any kind of weapon. So he hid the boxes behind a toilet in the boys bathroom, but they were later found by a high school janitor. They were listed as one box of 12 gauge shotgun shells and one box of 9mm bullets.

White said he would not give out the name of the student because no charges were filed, but the incident created a school-wide scare as all students going in were checked with a borrowed metal detector from the McKinley County Adult Detention Center and all buses going in and out of the school were also checked to make sure no weapon was hidden. School was delayed, classes were late and students and their backpacks were searched as if they were boarding a plane at an airport.

White did say that the incident will be turned over to juvenile probation.

Arsenault said in his release that law enforcement agencies did an outstanding job dealing with the situation.