14-Year-Old Tackled by Fellow Students After Teen Reportedly Pulls Out Gun and Points It at Them During Class

By Amanda Thomason October 26, 2019 at 12:29am

On Oct. 15, a 14-year-old freshman student brought a gun to school at La Habra High School in La Habra, California. While the gun was unloaded, no one knew that when he took it out.

According to KCBS-TV, the freshman was likely either trying to sell the gun or just showing it off. Either way, taking a gun to school was inexcusable.

When the unnamed 14-year-old was in shop class at around 9:35 a.m., other students saw the weapon and immediately jumped into action.

Student Dominic Carrillo told KCBS-TV that he spotted the gun and tackled the freshman with the aid of his fellow classmates.

“I grabbed him by his legs and I pulled him down,” Carrillo said. “About three other of my friends came and hopped on top of him to try to hold him stable. And by then, he was kind of flipped around and he said ‘grab his gun,’ and that’s when I knew for sure he had a gun.”

“I pick it up and I see that it’s a gun, and it has like a white handle,” he continued. “It’s kind of small, so I was just like, ‘oh.'”

“So I jump up and I run, and I go to the desk and I put it down. And the teacher just didn’t know what to do.”

“No, nothing went off,” another student said. “It was just like, they were just messing around, and I guess the kid — this is what I heard — like, the kid just took it too far. He was like, he didn’t like that they were playing or something and he just pulled the gun out.”

The school’s Twitter account sounded off to warn students, staff and others of the lockdown and reassure everyone that no one had been hurt.

“Highlander Community – We are currently on lock down as a precaution,” the LaHabra High School account tweeted at 9:46 a.m. “All students are safe. Please stay off campus at this time, and we will update as soon as possible.”

“Update – We were placed on lockdown by La Habra PD at approximately 9:35am in response to a threat,” the school tweeted less than half an hour later. “The student was apprehended by LHPD and the lockdown was lifted at approximately 10:02am. All students and faculty are safe at this time.”

By the time the La Habra Police Department arrived, the gun was already out of the student’s hands. The suspect was arrested shortly after.

A 14-year-old boy was tackled to the ground by fellow students after bringing a small, unloaded handgun to La Habra High School Tuesday, briefly forcing the campus into a lockdown. It’s unclear at this time who owned the gun: https://t.co/eRmgcwGMJJ pic.twitter.com/SJIB8yHrq9

— CBS Los Angeles (@CBSLA) October 15, 2019

Still, the department put out a Facebook post regarding the incident.

“Earlier today, responded to La Habra High School in response to a student in possession of a firearm,” the department shared on Facebook at around 2:00 p.m. “An LHPD School Resource Officer was on campus and the school placed on lockdown.

“A firearm was located and a student detained. No one was injured and there are no additional threats. The lockdown has been lifted.”

“As far as we know at this point the gun was unloaded,” La Habra police Lt. Brian Miller told KCBS. He also confirmed that it had been other students who wrestled the weapon away from the 14-year-old.

Despite the fact that the gun ended up being unloaded, that’s no excuse to bring a firearm to class and doesn’t diminish the bravery Carrillo and his fellow classmates showed when they were ready to put their own lives on the line to prevent what could have been a horrific event.

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