Two Madison La Follette High School students were arrested Tuesday after an armed robbery was reported on school grounds and a gun and loaded magazines were discovered in a backpack, Madison police reported.
Police say the robbery involved two groups of students and a deal to purchase vape pens, and that one of the groups reportedly flashed a gun as the pens were stolen.
A student later admitted to finding a gun on the bike path along school property Tuesday morning, police said, and the gun was reportedly passed around between students. Another student said the gun was never shown during the robbery and that it was a fake firearm, police reported.
An initial police search of school grounds did not turn up a gun, but a 16-year-old student was arrested for armed robbery and taken to the Juvenile Reception Center. His name was not released because he is a minor.
As officers were investigating the robbery, a La Follette staff member told them a different student might have a gun and asked police for help searching the student’s backpack.
The 18-year-old student was in a different room, separated from his bag, when officers approached, police said. They found a handgun, two magazines with rounds in them, a scale and an empty plastic bag that had contained marijuana, and as they moved to arrest him, he lunged for the gun, police said.
He was arrested for carrying a concealed weapon, possessing a firearm on school property and resisting arrest, and booked into the Dane County Jail.
Police say the gun had not been stolen and detectives were trying to determine whether the weapon was the same gun involved in the armed robbery.
La Follette Principal Mat Thompson said in an email alerting parents to the arrests Tuesday night that “possessing a handgun on campus is a crime and results in an automatic recommendation for expulsion.”
Police also found a gun at the school at the end of the 2022-23 school year, on June 2, and arrested a 16-year-old boy for having a gun on school grounds.
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