Tulsa student caught carrying handgun

Thursday, March 2nd 2000, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

TULSA, Okla. (AP) -- A 15-year-old Tulsa alternative school student faces expulsion after being caught carrying a loaded semiautomatic pistol to school. The boy was arrested Tuesday at The Pershing Center after a security guard found the gun in the boy's pocket, said Rick Palazzo, director of Tulsa's alternative education programs.

"This could have been a horrific event. It had all the potential for being a horrific event," he said. The student, whose name was not released, is the third Tulsa student caught with a gun at school this year.

He had returned from a suspension for fighting and had just met with school officials who noticed that he seemed "different," Palazzo said.

Later that morning, the student and the other boy involved in the earlier fight left a classroom. "One student was chasing another student down a hallway,"T ulsa police Sgt. Troy Rogers said. "The principal stopped them and asked the security officer to check one of them.

"The kid slid the gun out of the jacket and handed the gun to the principal." The boy was arrested on a complaint of possessing a weapon on school property and taken to a juvenile detention center.

Authorities are investigating whether the gun belonged to the boy's mother. Two or three gun-related suspensions occur each year, district safety official Jack Arnold said.

School officials said the fatal shooting of a student at a Michigan elementary highlights the need for zero-tolerance policies when it comes to students caught with guns. Tulsa's policy requires at least a one-year suspension.