A 16-year-old Gilroy High School boy was arrested for
brandishing a knife in the middle of English class and threatening
a teacher, police said.
A 16-year-old Gilroy High School boy was arrested for brandishing a knife in the middle of English class and threatening a teacher, police said.
However, high school administrators were surprised to hear these charges and said they understood the Friday afternoon incident to be much more low-key. Students held a knife and passed it around, but nobody made threatening gestures, principal James Maxwell said.
Both police and administrators agree that teacher Ohad Paran was standing up in front of his last-period class, giving a lesson from behind a podium, when he noticed something alarming at 2:23 p.m. Police said one of his students – whose name and address police withheld because he is a minor – was sitting in the front row with a black and white folding knife, making stabbing gestures toward the teacher.
“The teacher saw this, was concerned for his safety and called the office,” Sgt. Jim Gillio said, summarizing the police report.
“I’m a little puzzled by that,” Maxwell said in response to the report. Paran “just saw it being handed from one to another.”
Gillio – who handles all communications for the police department – was unavailable at 5 p.m. to respond to Maxwell’s comments.
Differing accounts notwithstanding, office staff called police, who responded to the classroom and arrested the teen for possession of a weapon on school grounds and making threats of great bodily harm.
The school also chose to discipline at least two other teens that held or brought the weapon to school, Maxwell said.
“The problem is, like so many teenagers, they don’t think before they act,” assistant principal Arturo Rodriguez said.
After the incident, the teen with the knife said that he was showing off the weapon to friends, Rodriguez said. While administrators must be skeptical, the teen’s emotions seem genuine, he said.
“Of course, (he’s) going to tell us the story that’s in (his) best interest,” Rodriguez said. Still, “you can tell that the person is very sorry.”
Administrators proceeded with standard protocol after the incident, which did not warrant a lock-down, Rodriguez said. Administrators suspended the involved students for up to five days while they conduct an investigation into the incident. When the investigation is complete, they will decide whether the student should be expelled.
Police have already handed off the case to the juvenile division of the Santa Clara County Probation Department, which will decide what charges the arrested teen will face.
Students were unaware of the incident, having heard nothing about it from peers or the school administration. Likewise, some teachers had not heard about the event. Paran was teaching Monday, but multiple attempts to contact him were unsuccessful.
The high school has had few incidents with knives in recent years. A key to this has been a zero-tolerance policy toward weapons in school that is strictly enforced, Maxwell said.
Students should know better than to try to test that policy, he added.
“Kids have been hearing this since they’ve been in first grade,” he said.
