A loaded gun fell to the ground during a fight Friday morning between several students at Sylmar High, an incident that resulted in a school lockdown and at least one arrest, according to a source close to the investigation.
No injuries were reported.
In a communication to families and staff, Los Angeles school officials acknowledged “a disturbance on campus” and that school police “recovered a weapon from a student and that student was taken into custody.”
KCAL News reported on the incident on Friday, interviewing a parent who said students talked about finding a gun and that her 11th-grade son saw another student being detained in his class later in the school day.
Regarding the events leading up to the altercation, “they said two boys were going to fight and one of them pulled a gun on the other boy,” the father told the television reporter.
KCAL also aired two videos showing the fight taking place. In one of them, it appears that at least two students are beating up another student. A portion of the second video shows a student picking up an object from the ground that could be a weapon, although the video as broadcast was blurry.
While the district did not confirm that the object was a weapon, a source close to the investigation said officers recovered a loaded gun that had fallen to the ground during the altercation and was later confiscated by officers.
The source was not authorized to speak about the incident and requested anonymity.
The district acknowledged one arrest, but the source said there was more than one student detained.
Last week marked the start of the new school year in the Los Angeles Unified School District, the second-largest school system in the country.
The fight — and the apparent recovery of a loaded gun — occurred a day after an after-school stabbing at Franklin High.
District officials appear to have quickly alerted parents through a messaging system, though details were limited.
The first message informed parents that “an incident was occurring at or near our school that required our school to go into a ‘lockdown.’”
Parents were told that “all doors and gates throughout the school are locked.”
In an update, the school alerted families that the lockdown began at 10:15 a.m.
A third message noted the end of the lockdown, which the district later said concluded at 10:54 a.m. The third message also said the regional office will “provide additional support staff to ensure the safety and well-being of our school community,” including mental health support.
It is common for this type of support to include campus police officers. Typically, officers are restricted to patrol and are not allowed on campus.
The scene of a fistfight or assault in which a student reaches for a gun recently had deadly consequences near the Washington Preparatory High campus, when a student was fatally shot by another student.
