An armed 13-year-old with a backpack and duffel bag prevented entry into an elementary school Thursday morning after being approached by school personnel and arrested a few hours later, according to Wisconsin authorities.
“We narrowly missed a tragedy,” Patrick D. Patton, the chief of police in Kenosha, told reporters Thursday.
The 13-year-old, who had gone to Roosevelt Elementary School, tried to get into the structure at around nine in the morning local time, according to Patton.
The suspect attempted to enter the school building through other entrances but was unsuccessful, Jeffrey Weiss, the superintendent of the Kenosha Unified School District, told reporters during a press conference.
He was buzzed into a vestibule section as he got closer to the front entrance. The teenager became frightened and ran away after being confronted by two school staff, according to Weiss.
“I can’t stress … really how heroic our office staff was,” Weiss remarked, adding, “They helped avert a disaster.”
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Thanks to community tips, police were able to identify the teen suspect.
“We can confirm that this was not just a suspicious individual, we believe that this was actually an armed suspect with a firearm and there was no legitimate reason to enter the school,” Patton stated in a subsequent news conference.
Shortly after 2 p.m. local time, police arrested the culprit. Police released a video at the earlier press conference that they claimed showed the suspect brandishing a gun. They also claimed that the suspect searched internet for school shootings and spoke to other pupils for weeks before the incident.
About 40 miles to the south of Milwaukee sits Kenosha.
