LAUDERHILL, FLA. (WSVN) - A 9-year-old boy accused of bringing a loaded gun to school has been sentenced to house arrest.
A judge sentenced the child to home detention for 21 days, Wednesday, after he was accused of taking the loaded gun to Lauderhill Paul Turner Elementary School the previous day.
The judge said the boy must wear a GPS monitor and cannot have any contact with the three classmates he is accused of threatening. The third-grader must also undergo an evaluation from a psychologist and cannot return to the school, which is moving to expel him.
The child is accused of pointing the weapon at three students in class, saying, “You see this? This is a real gun.” Police said he referenced being bullied during the incident.
According to police, the child pointed the gun at the forehead of a classmate and said that if they told the teacher, he would shoot.
In the police report, he also pointed the gun at someone’s leg and threatened to shoot that classmate if he told the teacher.
“I understand that when somebody’s being bullied, they have a fear upon them,” said concerned parent Barbara Ford, “and they come to school, and they’re scared to come to school, but bringing a gun is not the solution.”
The weapon was taken away by a school resource officer, who was called into the classroom by faculty.
The family’s attorney told 7News the boy has been enduring bullying since last year, and said his mother had recently reached out to the school about students picking on her child.
On Tuesday, the child brought a 380 caliber gun to school, and he pointed it at his classmates.
“The school was rendered safe as soon as the child was disarmed, and it was determined this was an isolated incident,” said Lauderhill Police spokesperson Yvette Marquez-Perkins.
Parents found out about the incident after the school’s principal sent out a robocall.
“Talk to your kids he’s being bullied and to sit down with the parents and get together,” Ford said, “because I had a grandson that was being bullied in school really, really bad, and we went and we brought the parents. We talked to the parents, we talked to the school.”
The boy’s parents appeared in court. The judge told them they can expect a lot of hearings, psychological exams and interviews because now Child Protective Services is involved.
“That gun should never have been able to be in the arms of that child,” Ford said. “If they had the gun in the house, it should have been secured. The child shouldn’t have even known the gun was in the house.”
The gun did not have a locking mechanism.
The gun involved belongs to the child’s father. It remains unclear how the child got his hands on it.
It’s up to the Broward County School Board to determine if the child will return to Lauderhill Paul Turner Elementary School.
Copyright 2024 Sunbeam Television Corp. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.