Parents are angry and searching for answers after a boy was caught carrying a loaded 9mm handgun at a Habersham County middle school football game last week. The incident, first reported by Now Habersham, elicited hundreds of comments from concerned parents and caregivers asking why they were not notified.
In the days since, many unanswered questions remain, but school officials are keeping relatively tight-lipped.
“The Board of Education Police investigation remains open. For this reason, there is no additional information to be shared at this time,” says Director of Public Safety/School Police Chief Murray Kogod.
According to Kogod, the juvenile has been charged with one count of carrying a weapon on school property (O.C.G.A. 16-11-127.1).
School Superintendent Matthew Cooper previously said the boy is not enrolled in the Habersham County School System. Eyewitnesses whose children attended school with the boy say he was a student in the system as recently as last year.
Lack of communication
No one was harmed in the incident, and while that is a relief, parents say it is of little comfort. They are questioning the school system’s lack of communication and how the incident was handled.
Now Habersham spoke with several eyewitnesses who challenge Kogod’s claims that, based on the school police department’s investigation, there was “no intent to harm anyone” and that no one at the event was ever in any danger.
“There were plenty of other bystanders/witnesses that will confirm the young man was never separated from the crowd,” one woman tells us. “Not a single person was informed of what was going on, asked to evacuate/exit the stadium, asked to step back/away, no lockdown, nothing,” she says.
This eyewitness and the others Now Habersham spoke with asked to remain anonymous. One of those witnesses claims he alerted authorities about the gun. He says he saw the outline of the weapon underneath the boy’s shirt and pointed him out to a School Resource Officer (SRO).
“I couldn’t believe what I saw at first and was hoping it was just a fake gun, but I had to tell the officer just to be sure,” he says.
According to the eyewitness, the boy, aware he had been spotted, left the stadium and headed toward the school softball field. The eyewitness says the SRO followed the boy but returned to the stadium without him.
“[A] few minutes later, the resource officer walked back up the hill without the kid, so I thought it was a toy and was handled. But just a few seconds later, the kid came walking back up the hill and came back in the first gate.”
The parent says he could still see the outline of the gun in the boy’s waistband.
“Honestly, I thought about tackling the kid,” he says, but he chose not to because he “thought that wouldn’t be a good idea with him being a kid.”
At that point, the man says the SRO saw the boy and made his way to him.
“The officer was able to get to him and took the kid over to the front of the concession stand,” he says. “That’s when the officer pulled the gun out from his back and ejected the clip and bullet from the chamber.”
There were families around
Another eyewitness says most of the spectators had cleared the stadium by the time the SRO retrieved the gun. Still, there were families milling around waiting for football players to come out of the locker room.
She says the SRO spoke with the boy and had him turn around with his arms out to his side. The officer then pulled the back of the boy’s waistband, reached in, and retrieved the gun.
The officer removed the magazine from the gun and checked the chamber at the table next to a family with an infant. She says the boy was not detained, placed in handcuffs, or asked to have a seat. He continued to stand.
Photos sent to Now Habersham corroborate her account. They show the boy, believed to be in his mid-teens, standing unrestrained next to North Habersham Middle School Assistant Principal Ben Bolton. The parent who took the photos says North Habersham Middle School Principal Renee Crandall was talking with the SRO at the concession stand.
“After seeing what was taking place and how it was being handled, me and my husband took our crew outside the stadium gate to wait for our player,” she says.
Ominous words and bullets
When the juvenile was eventually detained, the male witness says his wife overheard another boy say to him that he “messed it up.” That boy then left the stadium.
Those words, coupled with the fact the gun was loaded, caused the male eyewitness to question the school police chief’s assessment “that there was no intent to cause harm.”
“We do feel that there was intent due to the fact of what his friend said as well as there being a bullet in the chamber,” the man says.
But Kogod insists there was never any threat.
“There are no facts that support the premise that the juvenile had intent to harm anyone in particular or anyone in general,” he says.
Now Habersham contacted Habersham County Board of Education Chairman Doug Westmoreland for comment. He said that he “couldn’t comment at this time.” However, he did say he was concerned about the incident and expects a full report from Kogod and Cooper in one of the upcoming board meetings.
‘Poorly handled,’ eyewitness says
“The entire situation was handled poorly,” says the woman who left the stadium with her family. She says the brief press release the school police department put out days after the incident was “far from accurate.”
While the law limits what information can be publicly released about juveniles, it does not prevent school administrators and law enforcement from addressing parents’ broader concerns about lack of communication and procedures moving forward.
While many took to social media, email, and phone calls to register their complaints and share their accounts of what happened, Kogod says he has not received any.
“As of today, no one has contacted the police department with additional information,” he says. “The investigation can only be based on the facts revealed through eyewitness information and information gathered at the time of the incident.” He says the school police department is handling the investigation.
Kogod encourages eyewitnesses to come forward and share with him information they may have pertinent to the investigation. The sheriff’s office, which recently turned over all advisory authority of its SRO program to the school system, deferred all questions to Kogod, who defends his department’s response.
“The immediate response to the incident and the professional manner in which it was handled hopefully reassures our parents and students that our schools and school-related events are safe for all,” he says. “We continually strive to remain vigilant in keeping our school community safe.”
That perception of competency is key for Kogod, who not only serves as the chief of police for Habersham County Schools but also leads the Georgia Alliance of School Resource Officers and Educators (GASROE) – a statewide association aimed at school safety training.
This article has been rewritten for clarity
