Berkeley struggles to keep guns out of schools

Jill Tucker:

On the morning of March 21, shortly after school began, a Berkeley High School student snuck into a bathroom stall with a gun to show it to a friend.

Suddenly the weapon fired, the bullet ripping through the bathroom's thin outer wall and across a busy downtown street. Had the boys been facing the other direction, the bullet would have flown into a classroom full of students.

No one was injured, but it was the fifth gun discovered at the district's two high schools since January, a cluster of incidents that has sent parents into a panic and district administrators scrambling to address the new and disturbing trend.

The presence of guns on campus is not just Berkeley's problem.

According to state and national surveys, 6 percent of high school students say they have brought a gun to school at least once. That's the equivalent of at least 210 guns at Berkeley High School with its enrollment of 3,500 students.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at May 2, 2011 4:24 AM
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