The Prescott Elementary School student who brought a loaded handgun to school Friday and used it to threaten a classmate will not face legal consequences, but his parents might, according to the Lancaster County Attorney.
The fifth grader, who flashed a handgun in a backpack while threatening another fifth grader while the two were in a hallway Friday, is too young to be adjudicated even as a juvenile in Nebraska, County Attorney Pat Condon said Monday.
The Lincoln Police Department had referred the student, a 10-year-old boy, to the prosecutor's office on suspicion of terroristic threats, use of a weapon to commit a felony, unlawful possession of a firearm at a school and possession of a handgun by a minor, Sgt. Chris Vollmer said Monday morning.
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But the student is simply too young to prosecute, even in juvenile court, Condon said.
"The child's under 11 years old, so we can't," said Condon, who did not rule out charging the boy's parents with a crime stemming from the incident.
Police responded to the school at about 12:30 p.m. Friday after the student who was reportedly threatened told a teacher, who alerted administrators at the school near 20th and South streets.
Staff located the backpack hanging from a coat rack in the hallway and took it to the office before calling police, who responded and found a loaded handgun inside the backpack, the district said.
“This could have had a very different result, no question about it,†Superintendent Paul Gausman said at a news conference Friday afternoon, where he praised the response by staff and law enforcement and the student who reported the threat.
Only a couple of minutes passed from when the threat was reported to when the gun was secured, according to the school district.
It remains unclear how the 10-year-old got the gun — and whether his parents will face criminal charges.
The Police Department declined to make officials available for an interview on the incident Monday, repeatedly deferring to the school district.
In response to questions regarding who owned the firearm, whether it was stored at the boy's house and whether the handgun had been locked away, Lincoln Police Capt. Todd Kocian said:
"At this time we are still working on this investigation and will be providing additional details once complete."
Condon said any potential charges for the boy's parents would depend on the outcome of that investigation, but speaking generally, he said his office could file child neglect-related charges if the facts of the case called for it, such as if the gun was unsafely stored.
Condon, who has been the county's top prosecutor since 2018, said his office hasn't previously used the child neglect statute to file charges in an incident like the one at Prescott.
"I have not had these circumstances come up before," he said. "Thankfully, I should say."
He said investigators would also work to determine whether the gun owners were in lawful possession of the weapon.
"Did the parents have the ability to own that firearm?" he said. "If it turns out the parents were convicted felons and they shouldn't have a firearm, we look at those things too to make a determination if there's anything to be charged on the parent criminally.
"But then, otherwise, it would be under the neglect side of things."
He declined to say how the student in Friday's case acquired the gun, pointing to the ongoing investigation.
City ordinance very narrow
Lincoln's only ordinance dealing with the storage of firearms relates to guns stored in vehicles. , which the City Council passed in 2019 after months of debate, requires residents who store guns in their cars to keep the weapons out of sight and the vehicle's doors locked.
That ordinance was in part a response to lobbying efforts from the nonprofit Nebraskans Against Gun Violence, which repeatedly urged the City Council to pass an ordinance requiring all guns in homes be kept in a locked container, prompting former Mayor Chris Beutler to create the Child Access to Firearms/Safe Storage Task Force in 2019.
"It's not a new problem," the nonprofit's executive director Melody Vaccaro said Monday. "It's a problem thus far we haven't had the political will to resolve."
Vaccaro was among 17 community members — which included police officers, public health and school officials and a gun store owner, among others — who served on the task force charged with examining ways to keep guns away from children and to increase safe storage of firearms.
In a 21-page report, the task force noted that 69% of guns reported stolen in Lincoln from 2008 to 2018 were taken during home or car break-ins. And of cases solved by police, nearly half of the guns stolen from cars from 2014 to 2019 were taken by juvenile offenders, the task force said.
The task force also noted that from 1995 to 2018, there were 12 juvenile suicides that involved firearms in Lancaster County. In all 12 cases, the guns were either unsecured or kept in glass display cases considered easily accessible, the task force said.
And between 2014 and 2018, there were eight reported incidents involving guns being brought onto Lincoln public middle or high school campuses. The report does not mention elementary schools.
After meeting six times in early 2019, the task force failed to provide an unanimous recommendation for any potential safe storage legislation, stopping short of endorsing the mandatory storage law that some task force members — including Vaccaro — had advocated for.
"Some in the group felt that the numbers were not high enough to justify actions where there was not a consensus," the task force said in its report.
Former City Councilman Roy Christensen proposed two gun ordinances that would have required residents to lock up firearms left unattended in their vehicles and report firearm thefts in the city within 48 hours.
In October 2019, the council ultimately passed a narrowed version of one of Christensen's ordinances, requiring residents who store guns in their cars to keep said guns out of sight and with the car's doors locked — a far cry from the legislation advocates initially sought.
People found in violation of the amended ordinance once or twice would be guilty only of an infraction, punishable by a $100 fine.
In the years since the council passed the ordinance, police data shows it's been an ineffective tool in preventing gun thefts.
After there were 99 guns reported stolen in Lincoln in 2019, there were 123 reported stolen in 2020 and 135 in 2021, the latest year for which data is available.
"I just don't know what people expect to happen," Vaccaro said. "Like, of course, this is gonna keep happening."
Vaccaro, who described Lincoln's current gun storage ordinance as inadequate, also expressed concern that the measure could itself be nullified by the Legislature, which is set to debate Sen. Tom Brewer's so-called constitutional carry bill Wednesday.
The Gordon senator's proposal () would allow Nebraskans to carry concealed weapons without a permit or safety training and would prevent cities, counties or village boards from regulating "the ownership, possession, storage, transportation, sale or transfer of firearms."
The bill would also nullify any current city ordinances regulating firearms and would require cities to post a public notice alerting residents that previous gun possession and storage laws are void, .
Brewer's proposal, which has 26 co-sponsors, faces continued opposition from police officials in Omaha and Lincoln.
School day was normal
At a Friday news conference, Gausman praised the quick response by school staff and law enforcement to secure the weapon, as well as the student for reporting the threat.
On Monday, staff worked to keep the school day as normal as possible for Prescott students, LPS Director of Communications Mindy Burbach said. There was no police presence, although school counselors, a social worker and a member of LPS’ security team were on site.
“It’s an important step in the healing process for our students to get back into routines as quickly as possible,†Burbach said.
Officials were not aware of any parents who kept their students home because of the incident. Burbach said there were actually fewer absences than a normal Monday.
All grade levels discussed what to do when students notice something wrong as part of the district’s social-emotional curriculum. The curriculum teaches students to tell an adult if they see a student breaking the rules and to refuse to take part in similar behavior.
Friday’s incident was only discussed in classrooms where “appropriate,†like grade levels where students were talking about it, Burbach said.
Principal JJ Wilkins also held meetings with staff members Monday.
Wilkins said LPS’ safety protocols have been developed in coordination with national school security experts and “carefully balances school safety with the warmth and caring feeling of how a school should be for our children.â€
He added that LPS and its threat-assessment team would review those protocols. Wilkins also shared information on how parents can talk to their children about the incident.
Friday's incident was only the latest instance in what Vaccaro said has emerged as a trend — and a reminder of the city and state's failure to address the rising accessibility of guns, she said.
"Our elected officials — from both parties — are not addressing this problem of adults leaving guns around for children to find," she said. "And they bring guns to school. Every single year, guns show up in our schools. Every year."
Condon, a Republican, declined to say definitively Monday whether he would support local or statewide legislation to strengthen or create gun storage laws.
Condon said he would have to review specific legislation to make sure it doesn't present any "constitutional issues." And he pinned the availability of guns not on a lack of effective gun storage policies, but on gun owners themselves.
"Bottom line, it just comes down to people being responsible for the guns that they have," he said. "You can have all the safe storage laws, but if somebody still makes a mistake of having that gun unsecured in a vehicle, more than likely there's a good chance that gun's gonna get stolen."