Gun found in home of teen arrested in New Jersey school threat
DUMONT, New Jersey (WABC) -- A gun was found in the home of a New Jersey high school student who was arrested Monday in connection with an alleged school threat posted on social media.
Dumont High School was briefly placed on lockdown after the school received the threat around 11:50 a.m.
Four towns around Dumont were called in to help, with the Bergen County Sheriff and Bergen County Prosecutor's Office also assisting.
It all started just before lunch when students say the principal notified them of the lockdown. "And then 10 minutes turned into 40 minutes, and then 40 minutes turned into two hours, three hours," said one student.
They spent four hours sitting silently in darkened classrooms before heavily armed SWAT cops checked every inch. They were alerted Monday morning to the social media post by a 15-year-old sophomore at Dumont High.
Authorities say the male suspect was located in a classroom around 1:15 p.m., and the juvenile was taken into custody without incident.
He was escorted from the high school and taken to the police station.
Investigators went to the student's home and retrieved one long gun. They stressed the weapon was in the student's home and not in the school, and that they had the full cooperation of the boy's parents.
Many parents were in tears as they waited for their children to be released following the lockdown.
"It's our son, you know, and after what happened in Florida and watching the stress that those families are going through, it's scary," one parent said. "On the flip side, it's a wake up call for us, too."
At last report police were still questioning the 15-year-old student at the center of all this. It's not clear if he will face charges, or if he even was really intending to shoot the school up in the first place.
Fortunately though the system worked and he never got the chance.
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