Boy, 17, arrested after bringing loaded gun to Townsend Community School

CASTALIA — A 17-year-old boy brought a loaded handgun into Townsend Community School on Monday, according to the Erie County Sheriff's Office. A school resource officer secured the gun and arrested the boy without incident.The school's principal contacted the officer about the gun on Monday afternoon, according to a sheriff's office report. The principal was investigating suspicions that the boy had narcotics on him when he found the gun in the boy's backpack. The report indicates that school staff had overheard him speaking with another student about purchasing drugs.The gun, identified in the report as a .22-caliber handgun, was inside a front compartment of the backpack. A detective who later took possession of it found two ammunition rounds loaded into each barrel, according to the report.The boy told the principal, and later the officer, that it did not belong to him and that he did not know why it was inside his backpack, according to report. But the report indicates that the boy was wearing the same backpack when he arrived at school on Monday.The boy is being charged with illegal possession of a deadly weapon in a school safety zone, a fifth-degree felony, as well as a delinquent child status offense. He was turned over to corrections staff at the Erie County Juvenile Detention Center on Monday.In a separate incident on Friday, Sandusky police arrested a 14-year-old Sandusky Middle School student in whose locker they found a BB gun. That boy was charged with a misdemeanor: possessing an illegal conveyance of an object indistinguishable from a firearm in a school safety zone. He, too, was taken to the Erie County Juvenile Detention Center as of Friday.More from Erie County Sheriff's Office More from Townsend Community SchoolReach reporter Nicki Gorny at gorny@sanduskyregister.com and follow her on Twitter @Nicki_Gorny.