MONROE, MAINE (AP) – Police arrested a 10-year-old student in Maine after the student arrived on school grounds with a firearm on Friday.
No one was injured, the Waldo County Sheriff’s Office said.
The office said it arrived at Monroe Elementary School in Monroe on Friday just before 9am after fielding a report that the student had a firearm.
The sheriff’s office said police worked with school staff to detain the student and seize the firearm. The student was then arrested and taken to the Waldo County Sheriff’s Office. The office said there was no ongoing threat to the school or the community.
Officials with the school district did not respond to numerous requests for comment.
Monroe is a rural community of about 160 kilometres northeast of Portland. The small school has about 70 students and is set on a two-lane road amid rolling hills and forest. The news of a student bringing a firearm to school was alarming, said Ted Pellerin, 64, who lives near the school and sent his own children there years ago. He said it seemed the community avoided a tragedy.
Pellerin said the incident should prompt “a discussion with students about how dangerous something like that could be, how seriously something like that could be”.
The town is home to craftspeople and professionals who commute to Bangor and Belfast, Pellerin said. It once had a larger agricultural sector, but that has diminished. “It’s a quiet, rural community with nice people who support each other,” he said.
The sheriff’s office and federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives were investigating the incident, police said.
No further information on the incident was immediately released.
