Boy holding loaded gun to his head disarmed at Newport High

A Newport High School teacher snatched a loaded gun from a student yesterday, and school officials immediately locked down the school, preventing students from entering or leaving the Bellevue campus for most of the afternoon.

Just after 11:30 a.m., a school librarian called 911 after several students reported seeing a 16-year-old boy pull a semiautomatic handgun from his backpack and hold the loaded weapon to his head, police and school officials said.

Special-education teacher Bob Scroggs was in the school library when a student told him there was an armed boy outside in a hallway.

"The student was crumpled down (on the floor), and he was crying. I saw the student had the gun to his head, and I just cleared everybody out as fast as I could," Scroggs said. Twenty or 30 seconds later, Scroggs said, he returned and saw the boy was still holding the gun but had dropped his hand to his side.

"He had his head between his legs, and I saw I could get to him without him seeing me," Scroggs said. "I came along behind him and just reached in and snatched the gun from his hand."

The boy initially resisted but gave up the gun without a fight, he said.

"I just felt I had an opportunity and I couldn't let it go; I assumed (the gun) was loaded, and I assumed it was a real bad situation," said Scroggs, who disarmed the boy just as a school official announced the lockdown over the public-address system.

After Scroggs moved away from the boy, the gun hidden on his body, several students moved in to console the boy, Scroggs said.

Scroggs — who finished a teachers-training session less than two weeks ago on how to respond in the event of an armed incident — later handed the gun over to the school principal, who hid the gun in a locked classroom until police arrived.

The boy, a sophomore, was arrested on suspicion of unlawful possession of a firearm on school property, said Bellevue police spokesman Michael Chiu. He was being held at the King County Juvenile Detention Facility in Seattle.

Chiu said the gun was loaded but didn't have a bullet in the chamber. He couldn't say who owns the Smith & Wesson 9-mm semi-automatic handgun or why the boy brought it to school.

Members of the Bellevue Police Department's SWAT team responded to the high school at 4333 Factoria Boulevard S.E. and did a full sweep of the building, checking backpacks and classrooms, he said. Police determined no one else was involved.

The school lockdown was initiated during fifth period, when half of Newport's 1,278 students were at lunch and the other half were in class, said Ann Oxrieder, a spokeswoman for the Bellevue School District. Students who had left the campus for lunch weren't allowed back onto school grounds until the lockdown ended, she said.

Students were kept in locked classrooms for close to two hours; even after the lockdown ended, school officials maintained "a closed campus," prohibiting students from leaving school property, Oxrieder said.

Yesterday was the first time a student had been caught bringing a gun to a school in the Bellevue School District, she said.

Newport High School Principal Patty Siegwarth said the boy — who was immediately expelled — was a quiet kid "with no discipline history."

She said Newport students practice monthly emergency drills and all responded calmly to yesterday's lockdown. A note describing what had happened was sent home to parents, and counselors were on hand to talk to students, she said.

Sara Jean Green: 206-515-5654 or sgreen@seattletimes.com