Gun "Goes Off" in 3rd Grader's Backpack in Virginia School - Parent's Arrested

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The parents of a third-grade student in Virginia have been arrested after a handgun inside the boy’s backpack went off while he was in the classroom, officials said Tuesday.

Ciara Armstead, 36, and Terrence Carroll Jr., 34, were arrested Monday night and charged with willfully or negligently permitting the endangerment of the life of a child in their custody, a felony, and allowing access to firearms by children, a misdemeanor, the Spotsylvania Sheriff’s Office said in a news release.

The incident took place at Lee Hills Elementary School in Spotsylvania, about 50 miles south of Washington, D.C., just before 11 a.m.

Investigators say the child placed an unsecured handgun in his school backpack after finding the weapon at home. Once the student was inside the classroom, he “reached into his backpack to retrieve something and inadvertently pulled the trigger on the gun,” Major Elizabeth Scott, with the Spotsylvania Sheriff’s Office, said. Tuesday.

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The teacher evacuated all 26 students from the classroom and alerted the school resource officer who was onsite, police said. No one was harmed. “School staff immediately followed safety protocols that included securing the weapon, safely removing students from the classroom to the cafeteria, going into a school-wide hold, and conducting a threat assessment,” a Spotsylvania County Public Schools spokesperson told McClatchy News in an email.

According to deputies, the student found the gun at home and placed it in his school bag. The student’s parents were charged with “recklessly leave a loaded, unsecured firearm so as to endanger the life or limb of a child under the age of 14 (misdemeanor) and while having custody of a child, willfully or negligently cause or permit the life of such child to be endangered (felony),” deputies said. They were released on a $5,000 bond and are set to appear in court April 11, deputies said.

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