2 Henderson students arrested after guns found on campus
Two Henderson high school students were arrested after Las Vegas police and school officers found them with guns on campus Thursday.
The male students were arrested Thursday morning at Basic High School, said Clark County School District Police Department acting Capt. Roberto Morales. The first student was arrested as part of an investigation by the Metropolitan Police Department, which led to school police arresting the second student.
Meto spokeswoman Laura Meltzer said Thursday evening that the first student was arrested in connection with a burglary investigation, and officers found the gun on him during the arrest.
After Metro officers arrested the first student, school police looked into his social media accounts and another student in one of his photos, Morales said.
School officers found a handgun on the second student about 11:30 a.m., Morales said, and he was arrested on suspicion of possessing a dangerous weapon on school property.
In October, a male ninth-grader at Basic was arrested after he brought a BB gun onto campus, school police have said.
This school year, the district has seen a jump in firearm confiscations from students. After police confiscated 11 guns from students from August through early October — compared with five during the same time last year — school officials announced that students would be subject to random searches for weapons on campus.
The announcement came in the wake of the fatal shooting of student Dalvin Brown, 18, on the Canyon Springs High School campus in North Las Vegas on Sept. 11.
Before Thursday’s arrests, the last Clark County student found with a firearm on campus was a 15-year-old boy who brought an unloaded handgun to Sunrise Mountain High School on Oct. 9, according to Review-Journal records. The youngest this year was a 9-year-old boy found with an unloaded handgun in his backpack at Helen Smith Elementary School in September. The 9-year-old was not arrested but was referred to social services at The Harbor, a county-run juvenile assessment center.
Contact Katelyn Newberg at knewberg@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0240. Follow @k_newberg on Twitter.