Student charged after bringing firearm onto Nome-Beltz campus

 A male student at Nome-Beltz Middle High School has been charged with Terroristic Threatening in the second degree and Misconduct involving weapons in the fourth degree after being taken into custody the morning of January 6 after bringing a firearm onto school grounds.
No one was injured in the incident. 
According to a letter released by Nome Public Schools Superintendent Jamie Burgess just after 2 p.m. on January 6, the weapon was unloaded. Initially she wrote that students made staff aware that a student had brought a firearm to school at around 9:30 a.m. This timeline was updated in a follow-up letter on January 9 letter to roughly 10:30 a.m.
After being notified, staff initiated a “stay in place” response and called the Nome Police Department.
Nome Police Officer Dylan Howard told The Nugget in an interview that the Nome Police Department was dispatched at 10:31 a.m. and arrived at the campus seven minutes later. The officers met with the school administration, who told them they suspected that a student had a firearm. The principal fetched the student from class, and he indeed admitted to having the firearm in his pocket.
In the first letter to the public, Burgess wrote that it was determined that the weapon was unloaded.
The student was taken into custody and turned over to a juvenile probation officer, and charged.
Howard said that the student was honest with the officers about possession a firearm.
Burgess noted that the school did not implement ALICE (Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter, Evacuate) protocol because ALICE protocol is reserved for a “violent intruder,” she wrote. “Due to the brief time between awareness of the situation, notification of NPD and the arrival of officers on campus, the stay in place was the most appropriate response,” she wrote.
Burgess also noted that there were comments about the district’s response and communication surrounding the situation. “Community members have shared the need for the District to provide more information on its safety protocols and especially on the ALICE protocol,” she wrote. “The District will schedule an open meeting for the community to share more information and provide an opportunity for all to ask questions.”