US: 10-year-old student arrested for having gun at Maine school

Police arrested a 10-year-old student in Maine after the student arrived on school grounds with a firearm on Friday.

No one was injured, the Waldo County Sheriff's Office said.

The office said it arrived at Monroe Elementary School in Monroe on Friday just before 9am after fielding a report that the student had a firearm.

The sheriff's office said police worked with school staff to detain the student and seize the firearm. The student was then arrested and taken to the Waldo County Sheriff's Office.

The office said there was no ongoing threat to the school or the community.

The sheriff's office and federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives were investigating the incident, police said.

No further information on the incident was immediately released.

Monroe is a small community of about 900 people about 160km northeast of Portland.

Other communities have seen their share of guns showing up at elementary schools. Most recently, in Newport News, Virginia, a teacher was shot and injured in January by a 6-year-old boy who brought a gun. A prosecutor said he would not seek charges against the child. But he has yet to decide whether any adults associated with the case could be held criminally liable.

In Naples, Florida, an 11-year-old elementary school student was arrested in 2021 after bringing an unloaded gun to school and threatening two classmates, authorities said. In 2017, authorities said a first-grade student in Newton, Mississippi, was shot and wounded when another child was playing with a gun at school.

As far back as 2000, a 6-year-old boy was accused of killing a classmate in Mount Morris Township, Michigan. He was deemed too young to be charged.

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