There was a police presence on Wednesday outside Smithfield-Selma High School after a BB gun was found on campus, but police said no students were in danger.
According to a statement from the school, students and staff entered lockdown procedures after a weapon was reported on campus.
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Upon being notified, school officials and local law enforcement apprehended the student in possession of the weapon, discovering an airsoft BB gun through the school's weapon detection system.
The lockdown has since been lifted and the school continued its normal operations.
“I have been getting many more calls of toy guns, BB guns on campuses,” said Elisa Mula.
Mula is the CEO of EM Designs, a security consulting firm with extensive experience working with schools.
“This is not slowing down. These events are continuously happening over and over,” she told WRAL.
WRAL talked to students who were there in the moments during and after the BB gun was detected.
“I was sitting down in the bleachers. The dude came in with a gun; he took it out of his bookbag,” junior Jomar Soto told WRAL. “The cops, they chased him down.”
Soto described the situation as confusing.
“I ran out, got on the bus…we went to the middle school, and once everything settled down, we just came back,” Soto said.
The district spokesperson would not share what the consequences might be for the student who brought the BB gun to school. However, district policy obtained by WRAL specifically prohibits students from bringing them on campus.
The policy states that students may receive up to a 10-day suspension for the first offense or even longer for a second offense. It’s not clear if the student will face charges from law enforcement.
“Whether it's a toy gun or not, you have to be able to have that policy and procedure in place,” Mula said. “You have to take every detection seriously.”
The school noted that all students and staff were safe during lockdown. They said school staff are trained to enter these lockdown procedures anytime it is deemed necessary out of an abundance of caution for our students and staff.
Sky 5 flew overhead around 7:15 a.m. At least seven police cruisers were parked outside the building. At 7:30 a.m., students appeared to be entering the building with no issues.
In September, the school and nearby Neuse Charter School went on lockdown after a student told a school resource officer that another student had a gun. The report was later found not to be credible.
“Thank God, in this case, nobody got hurt. It was clearly a good exercise to make sure that they were ready to respond to that potential emergency,” Mula said.
Despite Mula and Johnston County schools’ praises for weapon detection systems, the largest school district has not taken that step. Wake County schools wrote in an email:
“We continue to review and implement the priority recommendations from the assessment completed by the School Safety Advocacy Council in 2019. While this assessment did not recommend the use of weapon detections systems, we continue to examine the use of these systems as school safety conditions evolve.
It will be critical to ensure that our district has the proper infrastructure and plans for staffing and training in place before any consideration of districtwide implementation.”
WRAL Investigates took a deeper dive into how weapon detection systems are used in North Carolina and their effectiveness.