Two students have been arrested this week for bringing loaded handguns into Nashville schools, the Metro Nashville Police Department (MNPD) announced.
On Tuesday, MNPD said a 17-year-old male senior student attending Maplewood High School was arrested after a loaded semi-automatic pistol was discovered inside his backpack.
The pistol was detected inside the student’s backpack as he entered the school building and was scanned by the school’s Evolv concealed weapons detection system, which alerted staff of a flagged item, according to MNPD.
The 17-year-old student was charged at Juvenile Court with bringing a weapon onto school property and unlawful gun possession.
Two days later, MNPD announced that another male high school student was arrested and charged after an Evolv concealed weapons detection system flagged an item inside a backpack of a 16-year-old at Whites Creek High School.
On Thursday, MNPD said the 16-year-old junior was arrested after a loaded handgun with an extended magazine and scratched off serial number was discovered inside his backpack. He was also charged at Juvenile Court with bringing a weapon onto school property and unlawful gun possession.
This week’s arrests follow last week’s arrest of an 18-year-old male student at Antioch High School who MNPD said was found with a loaded Glock pistol – which was later found to be stolen out of a vehicle on Garrison Street last year – after being flagged by the school’s Evolv concealed weapons detection system.
The student, Kenneth-Michael Ivory, reportedly told MNPD officers that he usually brings the gun to his after-school job for “protection” but forgot to remove it from his backpack upon entering school.
Ivory was charged with bringing a weapon on school property and with theft of a firearm.
The Evolv system, which Metro Nashville Public Schools (MNPS) has agreed to implement in all Metro high schools earlier this year, uses artificial intelligence and low-frequency radio waves to scan for potential threats as students and other individuals walk through the schools’ entry points.
The implementation of the weapons detection system across all Metro high schools was approved by MNPS after a successful pilot program of the system was completed inside Antioch High School following the January 22 deadly school shooting committed by 17-year-old student Solomon Henderson.
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Kaitlin Housler is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Follow Kaitlin on X / Twitter.
Photo “White Creek Class Meeting” by Whites Creek High School.
I’m sure their parents are fine upstanding members of the community. I wonder how many are even in America legally?
Lock them up until their trial, charge them as adults, impose maximum sentence if they are found guilty. Do the same for the entire school board, principals and superintendent. They have allowed this culture of thuggery and fear to fester in public schools. It was reported back in January by the Star’s very own Tom Pappert that the metal detectors were removed from Antioch H.S. Prior to that shooting. It’s only a matter of time before innocent people are once again hurt by the ignorance of academic administrators and their twisted world views.