A southwest Iowa teen faces charges after he allegedly brought an air gun to school and threatened another student. Atlantic police say 13-year old Lucas Stone was charged with two counts of harassment, following an investigation into two separate incidents.
Cass County Attorney Dan Feistner says the “air soft” gun could be mistaken for a real weapon. “We looked at the nature of the offense and given the fact it was not a real handgun changes how it can be charged,” Feistner says. “It certainly doesn’t diminish the fact that someone took something and put it to someone else and threatened them and that’s disturbing in and of itself, whether it was a real gun or not.”
Green says the teen allegedly brought the air pistol to Atlantic Middle School on October 8th and physically threatened another student in a restroom. That same day, Stone was accused of displaying the weapon to another student at his home in an alleged attempt to intimidate the other juvenile.
Feistner says he hopes the incident serves as a wake-up call to the teen and others who may be considering similar actions. “We hope that anybody like that can get help and treatment,” he says. “We see too much of it in our society when kids just impulsively do something like that, that’s really the big concern to me.”
Atlantic school officials would not comment on any disciplinary action the school might have taken, or will take, with regard to Stone’s behavior. The pistol is now at the Atlantic Police Department. The teen was sent to juvenile court, but was not taken into custody.
By Ric Hanson, KJAN, Atlantic