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.
