Police recover other half of assault rifle in home of Beaufort-area student
After a Battery Creek High School student was caught on campus last week with the upper half of an “assault-style rifle” in his backpack, officials found the rest of the weapon stowed away in the boy’s home, according to a Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office incident report.
The 17-year-old male student, whose name was not released, was disciplined by the school but was not petitioned to Family Court because he was not in possession of the entire weapon, police said.
School officials found the “inoperable” firearm parts, including 30 rounds of 5.56mm ammunition and another round in the chamber, with the help of the Beaufort County School District’s newly installed weapons detection systems. The device alerted an administrator as the student walked into the building the morning of Feb. 3, according to the police report.
Later that day, the boy’s grandfather allowed the school resource officer and another deputy to search for the other half of the weapon at his Burton-area home, where the student lives. The grandfather told police “he neither knew that (the boy) had a firearm in his house nor allowed (him) to possess a firearm in his residence,” the report says.
The student was the fourth at Battery Creek High School to be found with a loaded firearm on campus in the span of a year, according to previous reporting.
A school district spokesperson previously said the rifle parts were the first “significant item” caught by the new CEIA OPENGATE weapons detection systems since their installation in all Beaufort County high schools in early December.
Student claimed he ‘grabbed the wrong book bag’
BCHS Administrator of Athletics Liz Severide was manning the school’s “second set” of weapons detection systems around 8:30 a.m. on Feb. 3 when the student walked through the detectors, setting off the device, the police report says.
Severide searched the boy’s backpack to find the upper half of a purple and black “assault-style rifle,” police said.
The student was taken to the front office and, after being handcuffed, told officials he had “grabbed the wrong book bag” as he scrambled to catch the bus that morning, the SRO wrote in his report.
Additional deputies arrived at the school and searched the immediate area for the bottom half of the firearm, as well as the school bus the student had taken that morning, the report says.
After finding the other half of the weapon inside a “black canvas bag” in the boy’s home, police seized all parts of the firearm — including its magazine, bolt action group, charging handle and 31 rounds of ammunition — and stored them into evidence.
The Beaufort County School District’s handbook says students who bring a firearm or “destructive device” on school property must, by law and with “limited exceptions,” receive a yearlong suspension.
School district spokesperson Candace Bruder would not confirm if the 17-year-old student had been suspended but said the district “will follow our disciplinary policies to the fullest degree.”
This story was originally published February 11, 2026 at 12:16 PM.
