A teenager who was found with a loaded Mac-10 pistol equipped with a silencer in his backpack was arrested this afternoon by school police officers near Valley High School, according to Lt. Darnell Couthen.
Although the 17-year-old boy walked on the property, he made never made it inside the campus and there was “absolutely no threat to the school,” said Couthen, with the Clark County School District Police Department.
The suspect, who is not a student in the district, seemingly had no intention of entering either since he was spotted and arrested off-property, near Vegas Valley Drive and Eastern Avenue, Couthen said.
A parent who was passing by about 1:10 p.m. spotted the teenager, deemed him suspicious and contacted police, Couthen said. School police officers in the area responded and arrested him.
About the same time, Metro Police were called to a report of a large group of people off-campus not far from where the teen was arrested, Officer Laura Meltzer said.
The teen was identified as a former student at a Las Vegas-area school, although it was unclear if he had attended Valley High.
Couthen said it was the 15th case since August of a person with a weapon at a Las Vegas-area school.
The suspect failed a sobriety test when he was being booked at a juvenile jail, where he was being held on counts of being a minor in possession of a gun, possession of a dangerous gun or silencer, carrying a concealed weapon, and possessing a weapon while under the influence of alcohol, Couthen said.
Additionally, since he’d been on school grounds at some point, the teen also faces counts of interfering with pupils, nuisance and loitering and trespassing with a dangerous weapon, Couthen said.
The Clark County School District is among the largest in the nation, with about 320,000 students at 360 schools in and around Las Vegas.
The Associated Press contributed.