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7 Guns Confiscated from Baltimore City Schools Since August

BALTIMORE (WJZ)-- This week alone, two guns have been confiscated from students at Baltimore City schools.

The staggering number has school police officers desperate for more resources to keep classrooms safe.

Devin Bartolotta has more on the latest gun incident that happened Thursday morning.

School officers in the City are unarmed and they say understaffed as they come face to face with more weapons behind school doors.

Three were students arrested Thursday morning after police found them running from the Northern Building and discover a loaded gun.

Just two days earlier at Carver High School an unarmed officer wrestled a loaded handgun from another student during a fight.

In all, seven guns were confiscated from students at Baltimore City schools since August.

"We're rolling the dice every day," said Sgt. Clyde Boatwright, president of Baltimore City school police.

Boatwright told WJZ part of the problem is that the City Schools police department are desperate for resources.

"We're now to bare bones, and we're bare bones without all of our equipment," Boatwright said.

Just 105 officers oversee 193 school buildings with 85,000 students.

Officers stationed in Baltimore City schools haven't carried guns in about two years. Making them the only schools in the state of Maryland that don't have armed police officers.

"That is a false sense of security to have to have a uniformed, unarmed police officer," he said.

 

"I don't know how many children or little babies have to get hurt, or young black men have to get killed for something to stop," one person said.

"Kids are that way today, I think, more than when we were growing up, I would say," another said.

For school police, a flash point in their call for help to keep guns out of the classroom.

Sergeant Boatwright told WJZ 35 positions have been eliminated from the school police in just the last two years.

No one was injured in either weapons incident at schools this week.
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