A 14-year-old boy held numerous students and a teacher hostage Tuesday inside his West Virginia high school — a scary episode that ended peacefully with the teen dropping his gun and surrendering, police said.
A 911 call placed at about 1:30 p.m. alerted Barbour County authorities that a person with a gun was inside Philip Barbour High School in Philippi, a city of 3,000 people about 40 miles south of Morgantown.
According to a West Virginia State Police post on Facebook, responding officers arrived to find a 14-year-old armed with a pistol with other students and the teacher in a second-floor classroom.
Everyone else was quickly shuttled to safety, first to the school’s football field and then home via bus.
No injuries were reported.
“After initial negotiations, the suspect agreed to release all of the hostages,” state police noted. “After further negotiations, the suspect put the gun down and surrendered to law enforcement without further incident.”
Investigators are still trying to pin down what led the 14-year-old — who was sent to a local hospital for evaluation after the incident — to do what he did. Prosecutors are working to determine what they’ll do next, including pressing possible criminal charges.
