EMMAUS, Pa. –\u00a0East Penn School District says a loaded firearm was found inside a\u00a0student\u2019s school bag\u00a0on the campus of Emmaus High School Wednesday.<\/p>\n
At approximately 10:20 a.m.,\u00a0school officials found the firearm\u00a0during an administrative search of a student\u2019s belongings, according to a message from the school district to\u00a0East Penn faculty, staff, and families.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The district says the weapon was immediately secured by the school\u2019s School Resource Officer without incident. At no time during the recovery was the weapon brandished, nor were any threats made toward students or staff, the district said.<\/p>\n
“I’m honestly a little nervous,” said Lundyn Billings, a junior at Emmaus High School. “I sat down and, like, my friend was like, ‘oh, my God, that was so crazy, a student was found with a gun in their bag.'”<\/p>\n
According to a news release from the District Attorney\u2019s Office, the firearm is a 9mm semi-automatic pistol which appears to be a so called \u201cghost gun\u201d because it was not sold through the normal course of firearms commerce and does not have a serial number.<\/p>\n
The DA says at this point, it does not appear that anyone else was involved in the possession of the firearm.<\/p>\n
“I was, like, really shocked,” said Billings. “Just make sure to stay safe.”<\/p>\n
“It’s definitely a scary situation, especially living in America where we’re so used to this, where we definitely should not be,” added Maya Albright, a junior at Emmaus High School.<\/p>\n
Albright said her and her classmates were placed into a medical lockdown.<\/p>\n
“It’s very important that you’re able to feel safe in your school,” said Albright.<\/p>\n
The student involved was taken into custody by local law enforcement, and the school is following all district disciplinary protocols in accordance with state law and its code of conduct, the district said in its message.<\/p>\n
Authorities say the student will not be identified but has been taken into custody and will face felony charges in juvenile court.<\/p>\n
“While this news is unsettling, we are grateful for the quick action of our staff and the partnership of our local police department,” the district said.<\/p>\n
In the interest of student safety and well-being, the district says its counseling team is available for any students who may feel anxious or wish to talk about Wednesday\u2019s events.<\/p>\n
“If you need help, definitely seek out your school counselors, like any teachers that you trust,” said Albright.<\/p>\n
The district says it encourages families and students to continue reporting safety concerns through the Safe2Say system.<\/p>\n
Pennsylvania Act 44 requires schools to notify parents\/guardians and employees whenever staff respond to an incident involving a weapon on school property.\u00a0<\/p>\n
People with additional questions can contact their school administration.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"EMMAUS, Pa. –\u00a0East Penn School District says a loaded firearm was found inside a\u00a0student\u2019s school bag\u00a0on the campus…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":150243,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[214,119,121,120,805,233],"class_list":["post-150242","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-allentown","tag-_homepage_top_stories","tag-allentown","tag-allentown-headlines","tag-allentown-news","tag-lehighvalley","tag-schools"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150242","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=150242"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150242\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/150243"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=150242"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=150242"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=150242"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}