2 pupils arrested at middle school
Gun probe leads to other charges
Two Brighton middle school students alarmed fellow classmates Tuesday when one of them brandished a gun on a school bus while heading home, police said yesterday.
On Wednesday the frightened students alerted school officials, and yesterday police arrested the teenage boys at the Thomas Edison Middle School.
It was the second time in a week that Boston police investigated a report of a student in possession of a gun.
Police arrived at the middle school about 7:25 a.m. yesterday and found the boys, who are 15 and 14, in the basement, detained by a school police officer.
The 15-year-old was acting belligerently toward the school officer, police said. Neither boy was identified because they are juveniles.
When officers told the boys they were going to search them, the 15-year-old slapped the school officer's hands away several times, then pushed him, police said.
He was charged with assault and battery on a police officer. The 14-year-old was charged with drug possession after the officers found marijuana on him, police said.
The gun has not been recovered.
The arrests followed the apprehension Wednesday of two Charlestown High School juniors who were charged with unlawful possession of a firearm after police found a loaded handgun behind a wall on school property.
Shawnice Fletcher, 18, and Jimmall Marshall, 17, were arraigned in Charlestown District Court on charges of unlawful possession of a gun and carrying a gun. Marshall stuffed the gun in Fletcher's book bag, and Fletcher planted it outside the school, prosecutors alleged in court yesterday.
Fletcher was also charged with carrying a dangerous weapon on school grounds.
Jonathan Palumbo, spokesman for the city's public schools, said officials plan to investigate the incidents before deciding the students' fates.
Asked whether school officials are concerned about gun possession among students, Palumbo said, "If there is any good news in the story, it is that students are not bringing weapons into schools, whether it's because of the reporting and work of fellow students or the visual deterrence of metal detectors and security cameras." 