MACHIAS — A fifth-grade boy who presented what looked like a gun at a school bus stop has unnerved parents and students attending Machias Elementary.
On March 25, the boy came up to the bus stop, opened his backpack, and showed other students what he had. Ultimately, it was a blue gun with an orange tip, the sheriff’s office said. His parents identified to law enforcement that this was not a real gun, and witnesses felt it wasn’t, the sheriff’s office said. Parents say he also had a list of names, but the sheriff’s office said its office never saw a list.
Fake or not, the incident horrified parents.
Students have been staying home because of it, a Machias parent said earlier this month.
Sheriff’s office spokeswoman Courtney O’Keefe said he never pointed it at anyone. The student had it in his backpack and showed the blue gun with orange tip inside his backpack, from what a deputy was told by contacts, O’Keefe said.
The sheriff’s office investigated and found there was no probable cause a crime had been committed. The Tribune requested but has not yet received the police report through public records.
A blue training gun is modeled to feel precisely like a real one, but has no mechanism to fire bullets.
They’re primarily bought by police and military agencies for scenario training exercises, said a production worker at the Florida company that specializes in trainers branded simply as BlueGuns. A few other competitors make blue training guns, too. The Florida company’s fake gun buyers seldom have an orange tip painted onto their blue guns, but always on their black ones, the production worker said. Tactical gear makers and holster makers also buy blue guns for precise-fitting reasons as part of the manufacture design process.
Some parents learned about the March 25 incident from their kids. The principal transmitted a letter of an “alleged weapon” “off-campus” the next day.
Frustrated parents spoke out at the April 16 school board meeting. What transpired is “both alarming and unsettling,” a mom addressed the school board. “I would like to ask many of you if you would send your child to school with such uncertainty.”
District officials said they have been tightly restricted in what they can say because of student privacy laws.
“Know the frustrations are on our side, too, as we weave through this FERPA” (federal Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act) “and privacy” rulebook, Superintendent Kent Kultgen responded at the April 16 school board meeting.
Kultgen said about this student that the district has created a “tailored re-entry plan that’s going to be monitored.”
A later letter issued by Machias Elementary’s principal also discussed a re-entry plan that could include having staff watching the student.
Parents responded with disappointment at the board meeting. One had said the elementary school should have a School Resource Officer assigned to the campus.
Two days later, a small rally happened in front of the school district’s headquarters.
Parents say it is unacceptable they couldn’t get concrete answers about a safety plan or how their children are being protected.
“This isn’t about one child, this isn’t about privacy issues,” one parent said to the school board. “For me, this is about protocol, this about communication, and I feel like there’s a disservice to the students intended to be protected.” Without information, a rumor mill circulates, he said.
The Tribune does not currently know the name of the family of the boy in question, and does not know how to reach them to get their viewpoint for this story.
