Beaufort Co. students questioned for bringing rifle to school, sheriff’s office says
Two Beaufort County schools were put on modified lockdown Wednesday morning from a report that a student had brought a hunting rifle on campus Tuesday — but the student attended a different school in the area, according to school district officials and the sheriff’s office.
The Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office questioned two male Battery Creek High School students Wednesday morning after receiving a report that one of the students had brought a hunting rifle on campus the previous afternoon, according to a news release from the sheriff’s office.
Law enforcement learned about the incident after someone alerted them to a photo posted on social media that showed the rifle in the bed of the student’s truck with the caption “at school with it,” according to the release.
Beaufort County School District spokesman Jim Foster said Wednesday that two other Beaufort schools — Beaufort Middle School and Mossy Oaks Elementary — were put on modified lockdown this morning when law enforcement notified the district that one of the involved students might attend Beaufort Middle School.
In a modified lockdown, the school day continues as normal, but class changes are halted and all students are brought inside.
Foster said the lockdown was lifted after law enforcement confirmed the student attended Battery Creek. The high school was “never on lockdown,” Foster said, because police immediately found and interviewed the students involved after identifying their school.
Deputies determined the student’s intention was not to cause harm to staff or students, the release said.
However, having a firearm on school grounds is a violation of state law. The incident, including possible charges, remains under investigation, the release said.
Battery Creek High School had another gun-related incident less than two weeks ago, when police received a call claiming that a student at the school might have a gun on Oct. 31, according to previous reporting from The Island Packet and The Beaufort Gazette.
In that incident, students were already participating in a school lockdown drill when the call was made.
“Deputies were able to determine that the call to dispatch resulted from a joke that a male student made that he had a firearm,” the sheriff’s office wrote in a Halloween news release. “That student was identified, located and it was determined that he did not have a firearm on school property.”
The student who made the October call was interviewed, according to the sheriff’s office.
This story was originally published November 13, 2019 at 11:41 AM.