Centereach schools locked down after teen flashes pellet gun, police say

Middle Country Central School District officials locked down Centereach High School and Dawnwood Middle School on Thursday morning after an 18-year-old man flashed a weapon at football players, Suffolk County police said.

Officers from the Sixth Precinct stopped and arrested the man minutes after a football coach called 911 at about 8:30 a.m., Suffolk police Chief of Department Stuart Cameron said at a news conference in Hauppauge. The weapon turned out to be a pellet gun that looked like a 9 mm semiautomatic handgun.

“You can imagine how terrifying an event like that is with the attacks that have occurred at schools,” Cameron said.

The man was walking with a woman near Centereach High School when he pulled up his shirt and showed a handgun stuck in the waistband of his pants to students and a coach attending a football practice, Cameron said. The pair then walked toward Dawnwood Middle School, which shares a campus with the high school. The coach called police and school officials briefly locked down both schools.

It was not clear if anyone was inside the schools at the time of the incident.

“At no time were any students or staff in any danger,” Middle Country School District Superintendent of Schools Roberta Gerold said in a statement.

The suspect is a former Centereach High School student who dropped out last year, Cameron said. He was charged with third-degree criminal trespass and unlawful possession of a weapon on school grounds and is scheduled for arraignment Friday at First District Court in Central Islip.

Police did not release his name because he will be charged as a juvenile offender, Cameron said. He was “fairly cooperative” when contacted by police, he said.

Cameron praised the officers who first arrived at the scene for showing restraint. Unlike other toy weapons or pellet guns, Cameron said the gun the man had stuck in his waistband did not have red or orange paint on the barrel, which would have indicated that it wasn’t a firearm that could potentially kill someone.

“It looks just like a real semiautomatic handgun,” Cameron said.

The incident took place just a day after Suffolk County officials announced steps they are taking to improve police response to a potential school shooting.

“Incidents like this are real to us when they are dispatched and they highlight how effectively we would handle an event like this if it were real,” Cameron said.

By Joie Tyrrell

joie.tyrrell@newsday.com,michael.okeeffe@newsday.com@JoieTyrrell,

Joie Tyrrell is a Long Island native and covers education for Newsday, where she has worked since 1998.