Gun-toting students suspended
By Christie Wilson
Advertiser Neighbor Island Editor
The state Department of Education yesterday suspended six Kea'au Middle School students on the Big Island for one year following last week's incident in which two handguns were brought to campus and passed around.
Judith Saranchock, DOE complex area superintendent for the Kea'au, Pahoa and Ka'u school complexes, issued the suspension order. The boys, all seventh-graders, initially were placed on "crisis suspension" Nov. 18 while school officials investigated. Saranchock said the parents of the students will have five business days to file an appeal with DOE Superintendent Patricia Hamamoto.
Saranchock said even though the six students are prohibited from attending school, the DOE is still responsible for educating them. This will be done by sending classwork home and monitoring, or other arrangements, she said.
Meanwhile, police have forwarded the results of their investigation of the incident to county prosecutors for possible criminal charges, said Capt. Elroy Osorio of the Hawai'i County Police Department's Puna District. He said potential charges include failing to properly store a weapon and failing to keep firearms secure from children.
The two semiautomatic handguns that were brought to school by one of the boys are registered to one of the students' parents, Osorio said.
The boy brought one of the weapons to school Nov. 14 and a second gun the following day, school officials said. Both handguns were passed on to other students, and two of the boys took the weapons home.
On Nov. 18, a parent of one of the boys notified the school that her son had come home the previous Friday with a handgun. Police recovered the two weapons, which were not loaded.
None of the students has been identified.
The Federal Gun Free Schools Act of 1994 and Hawai'i State Act 148 provide that any student who is found to be in possession of a firearm while attending school shall be excluded from school for at least a year. The laws cover all firearms, including shotguns, air guns, BB guns and pellet guns.
During the 2000-01 school year, 13 incidents of guns or explosives were reported on public-school campuses in Hawai'i, involving a total of 17 students. Numbers from last year were not available.
