Wednesday, September 14, 2005

Machias Elementary School students find a loaded handgun during recess
Friends earn high praise for their quick thinking

By Melissa Slager and Diana Hefley, Herald Writers
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MACHIAS - A new playground at Machias Elementary School was swarming with children Monday morning, their first chance to try out the brightly colored new jungle gym. Grayson Pope, 8, was sick of waiting. So he turned instead to an old standby and one of his favorites - a big metal swing set. As he soared higher and higher, the third-grader glanced down and saw something surprising. He turned to a friend. "Hey! There's a gun in the wood chips. We should go tell a teacher."

School staff, parents and police officers are praising Grayson and schoolmate Khoa Nguyen, 9, a fourth-grader, for doing the right thing - leaving the loaded gun they found untouched and immediately telling their teacher. Police say the incident could have taken a turn for the worse if one of the boys had picked up the gun. The .32-caliber pistol doesn't have an external safety, and there was a bullet in the chamber.

"If he would have picked it up and treated it like a toy, it could have been awful," said Snohomish County Sheriff's Office spokesman Rich Niebusch. "The (boys) did the right thing and should be highly commended."

Each year, about 25 children are hospitalized due to unintentional gun injuries, according to Children's Hospital and Regional Medical Center in Seattle. Four to five children are killed in accidental shootings every year in Washington state.

Investigators don't know how the handgun ended up on the playground, Niebusch said. It doesn't appear that a student brought the gun to school. The sheriff's office didn't have any reports of shots fired in the area. Detectives are trying to track down the gun's owner using the serial number, Niebusch said. The person may be difficult to find unless the gun was purchased from a licensed dealer and is registered in a statewide database.

Both boys said they were "scared and nervous" about the discovery. "Why was it even there, and who did it?" Grayson asked.

Khoa wondered if someone from a nearby gun range "came over to play and dropped it." Either that, he said, "or it was a bad guy running and it slipped out of his pocket." Neither boy had seen a firearm up close before, but both have learned from their parents and in school assemblies and classes what to do if they came across a weapon. "They're really dangerous," Grayson said.

Francis and Alison Pope are proud of their son. "So many of these you're hearing, unfortunately, because someone got hurt," Francis Pope said. "It's kind of nice to know they're actually listening when you're talking to them."

Pope said their eldest son told him he probably would have picked the gun up, so it was a good lesson for him, too. "Grayson's my brother, and I'm proud of him," said Garrett, 11, a fifth grader at the school. The Popes took Grayson out to dinner, and the boy's soccer coach, a firefighter, gave him rolls of Lifesavers candies, telling him he had saved lives by his actions.

Khoa said his parents, Larry and Lynh Dicken, told him they were proud and let him have a sleepover that night. Principal Ginny Schilaty said custodians each morning scour the playground and adjacent fields for "stuff you don't want kids to see," such as beer bottles left by weekend revelers. Staff did not see the gun during their sweeps, she said.

The boys found the gun during the third- and fourth-grade recess at 10:15 a.m. More than 120 children were outside at the time. The recess came after two previous playtimes with about 200 younger students. The principal said she was grateful the new play equipment dominated students' attention, as well as brought out more adult supervisors than usual.

The school sent a letter about the incident home with students on Monday. When the principal on Monday led Grayson over to a sheriff's deputy to make a statement, she said the boy worried that he was in trouble. "No, honey," Schilaty told him. "You're a hero."

Keep your child safe

Parents are advised to take the following steps to protect their children from guns:

* Always lock up firearms when they are not being used. Don't assume your child will not find the gun.

* Always assume that any firearm is loaded.

* Use a locking device appropriate for the children living in your house. Do not depend on it as a sole safety measure.

* Never point a firearm at anyone, even in fun or as a joke.

* Teach your children that if they see a gun, they should not touch it and should immediately leave the area and tell an adult. Teach them that guns are not toys and that if a friend wants to show them a gun, they should immediately leave the area and tell an adult.

* Do not assume that other adults think the same way you do. Before letting your child play at someone's house, ask if there are firearms in the home and where they are.

Source: Safer Child