Two loaded handguns a student was charged with bringing into a Columbia school. (Provided/Richland County Sheriff’s Department)
COLUMBIA — Metal detectors at a suburban Columbia school caught two loaded handguns in a student’s backpack Thursday, district officials said in a news release.
John Cook, 18, was arrested on two charges of bringing weapons onto school grounds at Spring Valley High School in northeast Columbia. Neither gun was stolen, according to the Richland County Sheriff’s Department.
As of midday Friday, he was still in the Richland County jail, after being booked at noon Thursday, according to the detention center’s online search. It provided no additional information.
While the district can’t release disciplinary information on specific students, a spokeswoman said, the punishment for bringing a gun to school is expulsion.
Richland School District Two spent $3 million to install metal detectors and pay for security to staff them at its five high schools at the beginning of last school year, following a trial year of temporary pop-up detectors. All students, staff and visitors must pass through the detectors on their way into the buildings, said district spokeswoman Ishmael Tate.
Similar pop-up detectors are in place at the district’s middle schools, Tate said.
Cook did not threaten any students or staff with the guns, which security resource officers confiscated soon after he entered the school, according to an email sent to parents.
“I understand that this news may be concerning, but I want to reassure you that our safety protocols worked exactly as intended,” Principal Jeff Temoney wrote in the email. “This situation underscores the importance of these procedures, which are designed to protect the safety of all students, staff and visitors.”
The incident suggests metal detectors are a necessity in all schools across the state, said Patrick Kelly, a lobbyist for the Palmetto State Teachers Association.
Any state mandate would need to come with enough money to buy and staff the metal detectors, since many poorer districts would not be able to afford them on their own, he added.
“It’s on the state to make this a priority in the coming (legislative) session,” said Kelly, who teaches at a different high school in Richland Two.
That’s especially true since a law allowing people over the age of 18 to carry concealed weapons without a permit passed earlier this year, Kelly said.
Guns are still illegal inside public schools under the law. But the fact that 18-year-olds are legally allowed to buy and carry guns elsewhere could lead to more students trying to bring them to school, Kelly said.
“If that’s the society we’ve created, then we have to make sure these guns aren’t coming onto school campuses,” Kelly said.