Gun Fired In Elementary School

4/23/08 - A single shot was fired from a semi-automatic handgun in a large coat closet in Linden Elementary School today.

Police are still trying to determine whether the boy had fired the weapon, or if the gun had gone off accidentally.

"The exact situation was a gun was found in a fourth-grade coat closet," said the district's superintendant Joe Martino. "The gun went off and no one was hurt."

The school was on lockdown for about fifteen minutes after the gunshot, but school had already been dismissed, so it was mostly adults that were in the building.

"I just went to the closet to get my backbag, and then he showed me the gun," said fourth-grade student at the elementary school, Christian Perez. "And I just left the closet and then this girl came in and he dropped it and it just went off."

Mayor Richard Gerbounka said that the boy told the police that he had found the gun in a garbage can. Police believe that it may have been in the boy's possession for about a week before he brought it to school and showed it to his friend in the closet.