Sheriff’s deputies are investigating after a gun was found in a student’s backpack Friday at Chattanooga Preparatory School.
School officials heard there may be a gun on campus around 8:45 a.m., and staff recovered a gun from a student’s backpack, according to a news release from the Hamilton County Sheriff’s Office.
The student who brought the backpack fled the campus before being taken into custody, the sheriff’s office said.
“We don’t know where this gun came from yet,” Sheriff Austin Garrett said in comments to reporters.
Matt Lea, a spokesperson for the sheriff’s office, said he wasn’t aware of any specific threats made to the school, other than having a weapon on campus.
On Thursday, the night before, a student at the school was arrested on a charge of making threats of mass violence after allegedly threatening to kill two teachers.
Reports of threats to Hamilton County schools have been on the rise this school year.
As of Friday, 14 students have been charged with making threats of mass violence against a school since classes started Aug. 7, according to news releases from the sheriff’s office.
(READ MORE: Hamilton County Sheriff rolls out new app, crime data dashboard)
Six of those arrests happened this week.
“We publish every one of those, and we’re very intentional about it,” Garrett said. “And I know a lot of people think that drives this trend. We are going to be transparent with teachers and with parents and the people across this county about what’s going on inside their schools.”
Last school year, the office reported seven students arrested on the same charge over the entire year.
Garrett urged parents to keep their guns secured and inaccessible to children.
He also commended the school for its protocol of requiring students to leave their backpacks in a designated place throughout the school day.
“This limits student access to backpacks during the day, which ultimately reduces the risk of weapons or contraband being brought into classrooms or carried throughout the school day around campus,” Garrett said in the release.
Contact Ellen Gerst at egerst@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6319.