Police find weed in the bathroom ceiling of a Beaufort Co. school. How did it get there?

A fight between two Bluffton High School students on Thursday led administrators to discover a bag of marijuana hidden in the school’s bathroom ceiling tiles, according to police.

The fight broke out after a student walked into class, grabbed his classmate by the shirt and asked him “where is my sh--?,” a Bluffton Police Department report said.

When the classmate responded with confusion, the student started “striking him in the face with a closed fist,” the report said.

Two teachers intervened to break up the fight and then contacted administrators who engaged Bluffton High’s school resource officer.

The student who instigated the fight told the officer that he started the altercation because the other student stole his phone from his backpack.

The school resource officer reviewed surveillance videos and found that the two students had gone in and out of a bathroom several times Thursday, including together at some points, the report said.

The videos also depicted a third student who was also seen walking into the bathroom with the student who was hit.

When interviewed by the officer, the third student stated that he ran into the student who was hit in the hallway while looking for the nurse’s office, the report said.

Upon going in the bathroom together, they discovered the boy who instigated the fight “standing on a rail and looking in the ceiling tiles.” He told the pair that he had marijuana up there and believed the other student took some, the report said.

Following the interview, administrators and the school resource officer went into the bathroom and found a glass jar with a small yellow baggie of marijuana hidden in the ceiling, the report said.

The student who started the fight was then questioned a second time by the officer and admitted that he attacked the other student because he believed he stole his marijuana, the report said.

The officer wrote in the report that the student would be charged with 3rd degree assault and battery and simple possession of marijuana, a charge that covers up to an ounce.

The three students involved in the investigation were not named because they were minors.

During the 2016-17 school year, 104 students within the Beaufort County School District were disciplined for distributing, using or possessing drugs.

School district spokesman Jim Foster said the student would be disciplined for the “level 4” violation of the district’s code of student conduct, which calls for up to 10 days of out of school suspension with the possibility of expulsion.

This story was originally published September 21, 2018 at 1:00 PM.