A concerned parent's tip set off a chain of events Friday morning that ended with law enforcement finding a gun inside a student's vehicle in the parking lot at Liberty High School in Pickens County. Three students were arrested, and officials say the weapon never made it inside the school building and was not tied to any threat against students or staff.
According to foxcarolina.com, the discovery began when a parent reported a security concern to Liberty High School administrators. That tip led officials to investigate and ultimately find a gun inside one of three students' vehicles on campus. Investigators determined the gun had been transferred between students in parked cars on school grounds rather than carried into any classroom or hallway.
The weapon was never brought inside the school building, and officials said no threat was made, the same report states. The Pickens County Sheriff's Office confirmed that three students were arrested in connection with the incident, though the specific charges have not been detailed publicly.
District Says No Threat to Students or Staff
The Pickens County school district echoed that there was no information indicating the firearm ever entered the school building, according to wyff4.com. District officials also said there was not and is not a threat to students or staff associated with the situation, language that mirrors the reassurance offered in the original WSPA 7News report on the incident.
Despite the scare, Liberty High School continued operating on a normal schedule Friday, per the same foxcarolina.com account. District officials said appropriate consequences will be enforced in accordance with district policy and applicable law, though they declined to discuss specific disciplinary steps, citing privacy laws protecting student records.
A Pattern of Weapons Turning Up on Upstate Campuses
Friday's incident is far from the first time a gun has surfaced on a South Carolina school campus. South Carolina schools reported finding weapons on their campuses 1,089 times over a recent three-year stretch, according to a review by postandcourier.com. In the 2015-16 school year alone, the newspaper found that schools statewide confiscated 88 firearms, including 46 handguns, 11 rifles or shotguns and 31 classified as other firearms.
Pickens County has seen this kind of case before. Back in December 2012, police arrested a 17-year-old student at Easley High School after finding a .22-caliber handgun along with 200 rounds of ammunition, two axes, knives, cuffs and a stun gun in his car, the Post and Courier reported. Nearby Greenville County Schools, a district of 77,000 students, confiscated eight firearms over the three school years spanning 2014 to 2017.
Weapons have also turned up elsewhere in the state through routine campus checks rather than parent tips. A 12-gauge shotgun, ammunition, alcohol, marijuana and drug paraphernalia were found inside a student's vehicle at Wando High School in Mount Pleasant, according to abcnews4.com. In that case, a member of the school's campus security team spotted the prohibited items in plain view while conducting a routine patrol of the student parking lot.
District Credits Parent for Quick Response
Pickens County school officials said the parent's report allowed administrators and law enforcement to respond quickly and address the situation before it became a greater concern, according to the WSPA 7News account. The district expressed gratitude to the parent who came forward and reiterated that student and staff safety remains its highest priority.
National data suggests firearm incidents on school campuses have not been trending downward. During the 2021-22 school year, public schools nationwide reported 10 firearm possessions per 100,000 students from prekindergarten through 12th grade, higher than any school year over the previous decade, when the rate ranged from 2 to 7 possessions per 100,000 students, per a release from nces.ed.gov. No comparable current-year figures for South Carolina or Pickens County specifically were available for this incident.
