Charges filed against 2 students accused of bringing guns to Roseville Area High School

Two Roseville Area High School students are now facing criminal charges after school staff allegedly caught them with guns in unrelated incidents Monday.

One student, age 16, was found vaping in a school bathroom with another student and was subsequently brought to another room to be searched, a juvenile petition states. Staff were reportedly worried he had a weapon on him “because he kept reaching and digging in the front of his waistband.”

School staff searched the other student first, and when they unlocked the door to let the student out, the 16-year-old dashed out the door, too. Staff members chased him around the school, and he eventually ran out of the building and into the woods nearby. He was seen taking an object from his waistband, putting it on the ground and trying to cover it up.

A staff member went to the spot of the cover-up and found a 9 mm handgun and handed it over to a police officer. The pistol, which didn’t have a serial number, had one live round in the chamber and 14 more rounds in an extended magazine, charging documents state.

Staff members found a gun on a second student, age 17, after they broke up a fight and decided to search everyone involved. The 17-year-old reportedly “became wide-eyed and frozen when informed he would be searched,” a juvenile petition states.

The 17-year-old’s girlfriend had also told staff he had illicit items on him. The gun, which had an obscured serial number and was loaded with a single live round, had been reported stolen from McLeod County, according to the petition.

Both teens are charged with possession of ammo or a gun by a minor; the 16-year-old is also charged with possessing a gun without a serial number.