Air Gun Found In A Locker At A Tulsa Middle School

Tuesday, October 10th 2006, 10:42 am

By: News On 6

Two Tulsa middle school students are arrested after an air gun is found in a school locker. After receiving a tip Tuesday morning, school officials found the gun at Madison Middle School in west Tulsa.

News on 6 reporter Chris Wright says school officials say neither student intended to use the air gun. Still, they say their security procedures were executed perfectly.

Even before finding the air gun, Madison Middle School began the day on a modified lockdown. Administrators say the lockdown and the gun were not connected, they were simply taking extra precautions because of the recent school shootings across the country.

Security coordinator Bob Curington: "you know the things that have happened across the nation, the administration chose because of that just to go to a modified lockdown and secure the perimeter."

A modified lockdown means that all doors to the building are locked, but classes within the school continue as normal. Officials say that during the course of the morning, they received a tip about the air gun, investigated and found it in a closet at the school. Tulsa Police were then called.

Authorities do not believe the students were going to use the gun, but say they picked a bad day to bring it to school. Bob Curington: "shortly thereafter they made an announcement that there wasn't any danger to any of the kids, so the kids wouldn't be worried, and just continued classes as normal."

The News on 6 talked to several parents and they say incidents like this are not uncommon at Madison, but they would have liked to have been notified about the air gun. Bessie Salsburg "I was notified about it all, I was notified about it through you, that's how I found about it just now."

Administrators though are glad everything went according to plan. Bob Curington: "everything we have in place worked perfectly well, it came from a tip, it was investigated like most things are and we found the BB gun."

If anyone has a tip regarding a weapon or any other safety issue at a school, you can call the Safe Call hotline at 1-877-SAFE-CALL[723-3225], ext. OK1[651].