7-year-old boy hospitalized after gun goes off in Glen Burnie elementary school

Anne Arundel County Police are investigating what officials described as an accidental gun discharge in a Glen Burnie elementary school on Wednesday.

About 15 children were in a second-grade classroom at Freetown Elementary School when one of them was thought to have accidentally fired a gun, officials said. The shooting happened around 8:30 a.m., just as school was getting started.

One boy injured his hand when the gun fired, said Marc Limansky, a spokesperson for the county police. No one else was injured.

Anne Arundel County firefighters arrived at the school and took the 7-year-old boy to a hospital with serious but non-life-threatening injuries, according to a department spokesperson.

Based on a preliminary investigation, police said they believe the child got the handgun from his residence.

Officials said the student’s teacher immediately secured the weapon and gave aid to the child before he could be taken to the nurse’s office and school administrators could call 911.

“We’re just very grateful that, you know, this incident didn’t evolve into something even worse,” said Anne Arundel County Police Chief Amal E. Awad. “We know that bullets don’t discriminate.”

Freetown Elementary School was on hold this morning during the incident, meaning students and staff were not allowed to leave the building, said Maneka Monk, director of communications for Anne Arundel County Public Schools.

The school sent out a message to families about the incident around 10:15 a.m., Monk said. All students were dismissed around 11 a.m., either picked up by parents or transported home on normal bus routes. Police arrived on the scene by 8:36 a.m., about a six-minute response time, officials said.

Virchinie Henje Ngo, who said she has a preschooler at Freetown Elementary, said she headed to the school when she got a message saying her student had been dismissed. She learned about the shooting on social medial.

“This is so scary for our students,” she said. “I don’t feel safe with my kid, right now, going back to school.”

Superintendent Mark Bedell said during a media briefing outside the school that classes would resume as normal on Thursday. School staff did a “phenomenal” job, he said.

“I’m a parent in this school district, too, and I can assure you that my reaction would have been exactly what these parents were, filled with a boatload of fear,” Bedell said. “But these parents came and they worked with us. They operated with grace and patience.”

Cars created minor gridlock as parents went to the school to collect their children, in part because nearby roads were still partially blocked by snow and ice.

A steady stream of parents and guardians walked their children to nearby cars as school and police officials spoke. Yellow school buses full of children slowly departed.

Capt. Jacklyn Davis, who oversees the Northern District Police Station for the Anne Arundel County Police Department, said police were investigating, including trying to determine where the child was able to find a gun.

Her plea, Davis said, “parent to parent,” was for people not to buy into rumors or react to unverified information. “Have trust in us that we will get to the bottom of this, of where this child got this gun,” she said.

Davis urged residents to take advantage of county programs that provide free gun locks. They are available at county library branches.

“Somebody could have died today, and I think we are all standing here thanking whoever we believe in that this ended with a minimal amount of injuries,” Davis said.

The Police Department’s crisis intervention team was on site to talk with students and staff, in addition to the school system’s own counselors.

“It’s a lot for a 7-year-old, or an 8-year-old child, to process. We shouldn’t even be having this conversation, Awad said. ”School is a safe space."

She said the school isn’t to blame for this incident.

“How did a 7-year-old baby get a hold of a firearm and make it all the way to school?” she asked. “How did a 7-year-old child gain access to a firearm and discharge it in a school classroom filled with children? We should not be having this presser with you right now.”

This is a developing story.