LAKE CITY, Fla. – A 14-year-old middle schooler faces a felony charge after Columbia County deputies said the student joked about bringing a gun to school, causing a lockdown on Monday.
According to the Columbia County Sheriff’s Office, students at Lake City Middle School told officials that they overheard the teen say I “lost my handgun.”
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The students also said they saw the student searching his backpack with a flashlight to try to locate the alleged gun.
The school was placed on lockdown around 11:40 a.m., and deputies responded to the campus promptly. No gun was located on the teen or in the backpack, so the lockdown was lifted, according to deputies.
In an interview, deputies said the student told them that they made a joke and “acknowledged that the situation had gone too far.”
The 14-year-old student was arrested and charged with false report of a weapon on campus, a felony, and disruption of school function, a misdemeanor.
The student was booked into the Columbia County Detention Facility.
“The Columbia County Sheriff’s Office and its School Resource Division want to be clear: making any statement — even in jest — about a firearm on school grounds is a criminal offense that carries serious, life-altering consequences. A single careless remark forced an entire school into lockdown, disrupted the education of every student on campus, diverted critical law enforcement resources, and caused unnecessary fear and trauma to students, staff, and families," the sheriff’s office said in a statement about the incident.