KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A Hickman Mills Junior High student has a gun pulled on him at school and now his mother is calling on the school to beef up security. The Hickman Mills School District says it did have more staff on hand at the school Monday, and is discussing how it can ramp up security after a student was busted with the gun at school Friday.
The district says the incident happened because of a weakness in the security procedure and they’re evaluating what should be done to fix the situation. But a concerned mother tells FOX 4 this “security lapse” put her son at risk.
“I think they just need more security force up there,” said the mother, who wanted to remain anonymous to protect her son’s identity. On Friday, she says she felt powerless to protect her son when he called her from school and told her what happened.
“He was in the boys restroom and a young man pulled a gun out on him,” she said.
Her main concern right now is how could this happen when the kids are required to go through metal detectors?
“How did you even get a gun into school, did they check the kids that day?” she asked. “They go through metal detectors and get wanded, and that was my concern — how did you get a handgun into school?”
The Hickman Mills School District says it’s been looking into Friday’s incident and it turns out a ROTC student in uniform sneaked in the gun. It was broken into two pieces and shoved in his military boots. The boots typically set off the metal detectors and while security may have looked the other way in the past, the district says they won’t now.
“We’re having conversations this morning about new procedures come the next ROTC uniform check,” said spokeswoman Ebony Walker. “We do think of those students as being leaders in our schools, so that’s very disappointing.”
The victim’s mother says this has been part of ongoing harassment her son has endured, she says he was jumped by some of these same students just last week. She thinks more could be done to confront the problems at the school.
“It was very scary and at school you’re supposed to be safe and he wasn’t safe that day,” she said. “Get the parents together and have a meeting to try and stop all this what’s going on at school, and if the kids don’t want to learn, I don’t see why they’re going to school.”
The district says the ROTC student who smuggled in the gun is charged with carrying a concealed weapon. The female student who was caught with the gun faces disciplinary action for helping conceal it.
