A student fled after a metal detector caught him trying to bring a loaded gun into a Brooklyn high school on Dec. 17.
Police are searching for the 17-year-old student after he ran out of South Shore High School without his bag, according to the New York Post.
A school safety agent monitoring the detector noticed the .25 caliber pistol as the student’s backpack went through the scanner around 11 a.m. When the agent asked the student what was in his bag he fled.
Police say the pistol had four bullets inside and a representative for NYPD’s school safety agents claimed the student is gang-affiliated.
Campus Safety Magazine had previously reported on student advocate and parent groups pushing to remove the metal detectors from schools. The groups have said the metal detectors are unnecessary and discriminatory because they’re installed in the city’s schools that educate the most minority students.
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The NYPD’s school safety agent union disagrees with those claims and has pointed out that more than 300 weapons have been confiscated by the agents since July.
A City Hall panel had previously recommended some metal detectors be removed and Mayor Bill de Blasio intends to remove metal detectors in some of the 88 school buildings that use them.
“School safety saved lives at this school today because of scanning,” said Derek Jackson, a union representative for the safety agents. “I don’t know what was this student’s intention.”
