PARIS – The parents of two Oxford Hills Comprehensive High School students have pulled their sons out of classes just weeks before the end of the academic year, fearing gang violence. They said their action was in response to a school incident that involved a handgun Thursday.
“I am just not comfortable at this time that it’s a safe place,” said Victoria Jipson of Paris, the mother of one of the teens, on Friday. Her 16-year-old son is friends with two teenagers who were arrested and suspended Thursday after one took a loaded 9 mm handgun to school.
Jipson said it was wrong for her son’s friend to bring a gun to school, but she also said she knew it had been done in self defense. A group of non-students had threatened the teens and a fight was anticipated that afternoon. After three non-students entered the school at about 2 p.m., they were escorted off the property. A group of at least six other non-students had gathered across the street from the school, allegedly to fight.
Jipson said she believes the threatening group was made up of youths who have dropped out of or been expelled from Oxford Hills Comprehensive High School, or were from Casco or Auburn
“It’s a gang,” said Brenda Parent of Paris on Friday. Her 16-year-old son also is friends with the boys found with the gun. Parent said her son is “very scared” and afraid of retaliation. He will be completing the rest of his course work at home this year, she said.
Serious incident
Police and school officials say they view the handgun incident as very serious, but isolated. While the two students arrested and suspended Thursday may face further disciplinary action, including a year’s expulsion, there was no talk Friday of any need to increase school security.
Paris Police Chief David Verrier said there are no gangs in Oxford Hills.
Mark Eastman, superintendent of SAD 17, said he did not think last week’s incident “was gang related at all,” based on what he’d learned.
Additional security measures, such as metal detectors, would be “a huge next step in a building that we have determined is a community building,” he said.
Paris police Sgt. Michael Dailey said Friday that security cameras already are in place. “Once you start doing metal detectors and things like that, then you’re going to have people complaining that the law enforcement is overzealous, that they’re going overboard in this situation.”
High school Principal Joe Moore said Friday this isn’t the first time there have been “weapons” in the school. Sometimes a student forgets a jackknife in his or her bag. Sometimes one brings a knife to school on purpose. Three or four times during Moore’s 16 years as an administrator in this district, students have brought guns.
He doesn’t see metal detectors or guards as the answer. He pointed out that it was students who alerted the school resource officer to the pending fight and possible handgun Thursday. “And that’s why it’s critical for students to share with adults,” Moore said.
What parents should be asking, he said, is what young people doing on the streets unsupervised during school hours, and, why handguns are so readily available.
“You’d be amazed at what you can walk out of a gun show with,” he said.
Protection from violence
But Jipson and Parent said they want more from the school system and police. They both say they have made every effort to communicate with their sons and protect them from violence. Jipson said she knows her son calls his friends “the crew,” but says they are very respectful teens. She forbids him from wearing bandannas, sometimes used to symbolize gang membership.
Parent said what worries her most is how a conflict has developed between her son’s friends and others, and she wonders why young people from outside the area are coming to Oxford Hills.
“I moved up here mainly to get (my son) out of Lewiston,” Parent said, referring to the more urban school environment there. She noted the irony of her decision.
“I’m going to keep him out the rest of the year,” she said. “From this point, we’ll kind of see what escalates.”
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