VERO BEACH, Fla. — An 18-year-old student was arrested Monday morning after bringing a loaded handgun to Vero Beach High School, a school district official said.
Cristen Maddux, the public information officer for the School District of Indian River County, said that before the start of classes Monday, several students were suspected of vaping in a school restroom.
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School administrators brought the students to the office and searched their bags, and a handgun was found inside the bag of Martrez Antonio Barnes, 18, Maddux said.
Indian River County deputies arrested Barnes and faces a second-degreed felony charge of possession of a firearm on school property. Maddux said Barnes will not be returning to Vero Beach High School.
"There’s a chance that that could go off and absolutely kill or injure somebody inside of the school," Indian River County Sheriff Eric Flowers, said.
Flowers said the gun was a loaded .380 caliber handgun, and said at this point, nothing suggests he brought the gun on campus to harm anyone.
"There were no threats associated with this, there’s no belief that he had intention to use the gun against anybody, but we’re going to continue to investigate, find out the history of the gun, how he was able to obtain it," Flowers said.
It's the third time in just over a year deputies arrested a student for similar incidents.
InNovember 2022, a student was arrested for making threats and having a loaded gun.
In March 2023, another student was arrested for having a loaded gun on campus.
“The fact that it’s happening over and over again it's, it's just crazy that it's even, like, a possibility to happen," 10th grade student Moses Lewin said.
"This ain't the first incident so there’s times you want to home school your kids," parent John Wallace said. "It's not like it was when we grew up in school, you know?”
"Out of an abundance of caution, there will be increased security on campus today," Maddux said in a written statement to WPTV. "We are thankful for our school admin law enforcement officers for their vigilance and working quickly to immediately handle the incident. Due to their work, there were no disruptions to our school day and our schedule will continue as normal."