Beaufort-area high schooler charged with bringing kitchen knife on campus
A student at Battery Creek High School was criminally charged after administrators found a kitchen knife in his bag — less than a month after another student was disciplined for bringing a loaded gun on campus.
The unidentified high schooler was charged in Beaufort County Family Court with bringing a weapon on school grounds, which is a felony in South Carolina. It was unclear why the knife was in his bag or if he had any plan to use it.
BCHS Assistant Principal CaTia Gilbert pulled the student aside Monday morning when she saw him selling candy from his bag, which is a violation of school policy, according to an incident report from the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office.
In response, Gilbert conducted a “safety search” of the student and his bags in the school’s counseling area, accompanied by a campus security guard. Inside the student’s “male bag,” the report says, Gilbert found a culinary knife with an approximately 4-inch blade.
The student then told administrators that “people were out to get him,” which Gilbert interpreted as an attempt to argue he had been “set up” by someone. A school resource officer put him in handcuffs and, after his mother arrived, the student was petitioned to family court.
Administrators also found three vaping devices in the student’s possession, which would result in disciplinary action from the school, according to the police report.
He was the second student to be caught with a weapon on Battery Creek’s campus so far this semester. In both cases, the weapon was found during a safety check prompted by an unrelated incident. On Aug. 27, during the fourth week of school, a 16-year-old male BCHS student was criminally charged after school officials searched his backpack in a disciplinary meeting and found a loaded pistol. The campus of about 800 students went under “secure status,” a protocol one step below full lockdown wherein all doors are locked and teachers continue lesson plans inside their classrooms.
Because they are minors, neither student was publicly identified.
The Beaufort County School District policy handbook says anyone who brings a weapon on school grounds is referred to police and punished under state law. It specifies that knives with blades over 2 inches, among other weapons, pose “a severe threat of serious harm or injury to students and staff.”
Any student found with a firearm on campus is subject to expulsion for at least a year, according to the handbook.
