St. Cloud-area community school student taken into custody after gun found in locker

ST. CLOUD – A student at Kennedy Community School in St. Joseph was taken into custody Friday after the principal found an unloaded handgun in the student’s locker, according to St. Cloud school district Superintendent Laurie Putnam.

The student’s age and gender are not being released publicly due to data practice laws, Putnam said. The school serves students in preschool through eighth grade in St. Joseph, which is just west of St. Cloud.

“Based on all of the investigation that’s happened so far, there’s no evidence of any threat to any individual or the school community,” Putnam said Monday. “We know it’s a safety concern but there was no danger to the community in that moment, that day.”

Putnam said Kennedy Principal Anna Willhite found the handgun in the student’s locker after police had reached out about a potential nonsafety-related incident in the community involving a student at Kennedy.

“Law enforcement had reached out to our principal [and] she was able to identify the student and searched the locker — not looking for any weapons. We had no indication of that,” Putnam said. There was no ammunition found in the locker.

Putnam said district leaders do not know why the student had the weapon in their locker.

“The student was taken into custody immediately. At that point, it’s out of our hands,” she said. “We have to wait for law enforcement to provide a data report.”

Before the incident, school leaders had not heard of any threats of violence involving the student.

“Often, when there are concerns about safety, there’s past concerns about bullying or harassment,” Putnam said. “There were none of those flags or warning signs that typically may accompany school violence.”

Administrators alerted school staff of the incident after school Friday and then sent a letter to Kennedy families. Putnam said many parents reached out over the weekend to ask why school leaders didn’t tell the students and why the school didn’t go into lockdown.

“I firmly believe that’s a conversation that parents should get to decide if and how they want to have with their children,” she said, adding, there was no need for a lockdown. “Law enforcement was on-site. Administration was there. And neither party believed there was any need for a containment or a shelter-in-place.”

About 10 students decided not to attend school Monday due to concerns over the incident, but all staff came in, Putnam said. The district also provided additional counselors to students on Monday.

Putnam said the student will be expelled in alignment with the district’s code of conduct.