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An 18-year-old Gunn High School student, Weston Healy, was arrested Thursday afternoon for allegedly possessing a weapon on Gunn’s campus, following a dramatic police lockdown of the school.
Healy was taken into custody shortly before 3 p.m., about an hour after a city worker called police to report that two men had driven onto campus. One appeared to be armed with an assault weapon, which later was found to be an Airsoft rifle, according to police.
Airsoft rifles shoot BB-sized plastic pellets.
Also located in the vehicle were two face masks, one spade shovel with a 4″ pick, a hatchet with a removable saw, and a military style knife with a 7″ blade, according to a police press release.
It is a felony to possess a knife, gun or other weapon on campus, Police Lt. Sandra Brown said Thursday. Campus includes not just the academic buildings but also the parking lot and athletic fields, she added.
Police officers, including a SWAT team, immediately responded to the 911 call, locating the unoccupied vehicle in the school parking lot. Police called for a “Code Red,” initiating the school’s lockdown, officials said.
School administrators and police located the two suspects inside a classroom, both of whom were Gunn students and who admitted to possessing the rifle.
Other Gunn students were ordered to stay in the classrooms and other buildings during the incident. Several reported not knowing why the school was in lockdown and feeling afraid.
Students were released from the school shortly before 3 p.m.
Gunn issued an e-mail statement to families at 3:56 p.m.
“This afternoon as students were leaving class, Gunn experienced a Code Red as a safety precaution.
“At no time were students or staff in danger,” the Gunn statement said. “Students and staff did an excellent job of following the Code Red procedure and the Palo Alto Police Department’s response was immediate and extremely effective.”
During the incident, police received a separate report of possible gunshots in the area of Los Robles Avenue, near Gunn, and a report of a Gunn student being held hostage by a gunman. The gunshots were unsubstantiated, and the hostage claim turned out to be a misunderstanding between a student and parent, the police stated.
Parents arriving to pick their children up were diverted to Alta Mesa Cemetery across Arastradero Road from Gunn while police and school officials concentrated on room V9 in the portables section of the school.
Other parents waited in cars along Miranda Avenue and on Arastradero until cones barricading the campus entrance were removed. Many were on cell phones attempting to reach their children inside the school.
One student reported that desks has been pushed up against the inside of the door of the classroom.
As students poured out of Gunn following the lockdown, the campus still swarmed with police.
One student said she had been confined in the school’s main office with staff, while other students said they had been held in classrooms or the school’s library. They were unsure of the cause of the disturbance or whether those detained were Gunn students or outsiders.
Gunn officials stated Friday morning that disciplinary procedures will follow for Healy and the second student involved, who has not been named. In addition, a third student was detained during the incident but was found not to have been involved and was immediately released.
unreal
parents should be ashamed how they bring their kids up…its cali….libby town…where time outs are used for punishment….lol…please ppl of cali…get a grip…you are mental….grow some balls…women Im talking to you to…and parent…a little whack growing up, and this may have never happened
Nice senior prank
HAHAHAHAHA
They should discourage this by changing the name of the school. And the mascot shouldn’t be the Gunn Riflemen.
unreal, you’re a great example of what corporal punishment can accomplish; quite an end product. Also last I checked, most actual nutcase school shootings happen outside “cali”. (our we STILL really using that played out term? hilarious)
Reminds me of the Columbine shootings several years ago in Colorado.
Making light of this situation(Gunn HS) and the “raising” of our “leaders of tomorrow.” As I recall, as word of the Columbine event began to spread, the father of one of the shooters called his attorney FIRST thing. What does that tell you about parenting these days? Think about, folks! Probably some of you should study the image in the mirror.
It tells me, yes, that some are very bad parents, but not most.
If it was an systemic issue of parenting or non parenting, it wouldn’t be so uncommon.
Seems everyone always knows how to raise someone else’s kid better…except they don’t.
The airsoft toy gun is not dangerous, no one could have been seriously injured with it. It is NOT the same thing as a BB/pellet gun.
The knife and hatchet on the other hand are very dangerous and they should be charged with possession of those weapons on campus.
Jeez , I wish reporters will stop referring to an AIRSOFT TOY as a rifle. I always thought you americans are crazy, till i visited South Dakota a couple of years ago. Turns out you are really decent folks, you only seem crazy in overseas newspapers ! This story being a prime example.
This has been blown way out of proportion! Yes, it may have been scary for the person who saw the toy and didn’t realize that it was a TOY air soft rifle and that it be brought to the attention of the school. Come on folks, this kid is an upstanding young adult everyone is criminalizing, an Eagle Scout going to Cornell, who didn’t use common sense with his camping/recreational gear left in his car. Honestly, Gunn High has had it’s tragedies this last year with kids feeling so much pressure that they can no longer take it. Here’s a kid that has worked hard and expulsion, non-graduation and quite possibly being prevented from entering school in the fall is no way to treat someone who has made it out of that pressure cooker of a school alive.
I just wish that people would take a deep breath and wait for the facts to be provided before they create the next made for TV movie about disturbed youth in their heads.
As for the air soft rifle and what damage it can do… I’m a mother of four kids ranging from 9-15. My 15 year old has an air soft rifle, which I have used to scare a hawk away from my backyard and small dog. I took a shot and the pellet bounced off the wing of the hawk, as if I had flicked it with my finger. The hawk took flight and laughed at me in my effort to make it move.
Seriously get over yourselves and let this kid go to college. His experience to this point will be enough for him to use better sense in the future. Most importantly, allow him to have a future.
One is sheltered to what is going on in the world to think that this is such an innocent mistake of the so call “Eagle Scout.” If he was transporting it from one location to another for a legal purpose then it would have never been seen. It would have remained in the trunk of the vehicle and secured just like one that takes a firearm to a firing range. If you don’t think this is serious then do a Google news search of “police shoot student or child with toy gun.” It is serious and dangerous. All it takes is for one to point it in the wrong direction and then a police officer has to wonder for the rest of their days why the child did what they did, why they had to shoot a child and then cry everyday seeing the bad images in their sleep of pulling the trigger at someone they didn’t want to kill. Think about it. Oh big red flag here…what’s with the mask? That has I am going to do something bad written all over it.
Glad it was not in my neighborhood.
The mask was a clear plastic safety mask for use with the toy airsoft gun. Like a paintball mask.
“After considering the “specific facts and the applicable law,” prosecutors opted not to pursue the case against 18-year-old Weston Healy, district attorney spokeswoman Amy Cornell said Wednesday.”
No charges.
http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_15265718?IADID=Search-www.mercurynews.com-www.mercurynews.com
DA won’t file.
http://www.paloaltoonline.com/news/show_story.php?id=17138&e=y
“After considering the “specific facts and the applicable law,” prosecutors opted not to pursue the case against 18-year-old Weston Healy, district attorney spokeswoman Amy Cornell said Wednesday.”
You could put your eye out with that.
I have a knife and hatchet left over from a camping trip a few days ago in the back of my car right now. I hope that I do not get stopped.
(People in the rest of the country are laughing the butts off at us, again.)
I have lost count. What is the death toll at Gunn from Caltrain? from guns?
Maybe a change in priorities would be helpful? More talking, less SWAT?
cbfla – thank you for some common sense. Hopefully this silliness will be dropped quickly and the boy can move on with his life.