By LORINDA TOLEDO

A 16-year-old student sneaked the silver Colt handgun into the Dillard High School cafeteria, palmed the weapon beneath a table and threatened two girls, the Fort Lauderdale police said.

“I’m going to shoot you,” the student, Tevin L. Clark, allegedly told one girl, according to a police report of the Wednesday morning incident. Officers later arrested Clark on multiple charges, including carrying a concealed weapon and aggravated assault.

The teenager is likely to be charged as an adult, The Miami Herald reported Thursday, after a court hearing in which a judge ruled that Clark would spend the next 21 days in juvenile detention while lawyers decide how to handle his charges.

The 10th-grader has also been suspended from school for two weeks pending expulsion, said Keith Bromery, a spokesman for Broward County Schools.

It is unclear why Clark brought the gun to school. A phone call to his mother was not returned Thursday afternoon.

According to the police report, Clark threatened his fellow students just after 7 a.m. The girls told campus security, and the school’s resource officer began searching for Clark. Someone told the police that he had stashed the gun in his book bag.

Clark was later seen walking south along 27th Avenue. The officer caught up with him there and repeatedly ordered him to drop a black T-shirt he was carrying because the officer saw “a silver object inside,” the police report stated.

The boy refused to put down the T-shirt, and the officer fired his Taser. The weapon didn’t stop Clark, who yelled and fled.

Sgt. Frank Sousa, a spokesman for the Fort Lauderdale Police, said department policy states that an officer may Taser minors if they are “clearly exhibiting behavior that could cause harm to themselves or others” and have “the apparent ability to carry out those intentions.”

Sousa also explained that a Taser is not generally effective unless it hits a major muscle mass.

The police eventually arrested Clark on the 2600 block of NW 9th Street. They also found an unloaded Colt .380 automatic handgun nearby.

State records show that Clark has an extensive juvenile criminal history, including a charge of robbery with a firearm in July 2007, the Herald reported.

Bromery, the spokesman for Broward County schools, said most students at the school were not aware of the incident because it happened before most people had arrived for the day.

Later in the day, the school’s principal, Merceda Stanley, sent a phone message to parents letting them know about the incident and urging them to talk with their children about weapons and responsible behavior.

Located at 2501 NW 11th St., Dillard High School is in an urban environment with the same crime issues that many other urban areas struggle with, Bromery said.

During the 2007-08 school year, 503 weapons were confiscated from Broward County students, according to the School Environmental Safety Incident Report for that period. The previous year, 315 were confiscated.
On Nov. 12, Dillard was the scene of a fatal shooting in which Teah Wimberly, 15, was accused of killing 15-year-old Amanda Collette in a school hallway.

Wimberly has been charged with second-degree murder and appeared in court on Thursday. Larry Davis, Wimberly’s lawyer, asked that the girl be transferred from Broward County Jail to Fort Lauderdale Hospital’s psychiatric unit, the Herald reported, but a judge ruled that she should stay where she is and undergo psychiatric evaluation.

Following Wednesday’s incident at Dillard, Bromery said the school had no plans to install metal detectors. In his experience with the Chicago school system, he said, the machines instill a false sense of security.

“The way to keep guns out of schools is not to turn schools into jails,” Bromery said.
The school district will continue to instill a “safety culture” through its “Silence Hurts” program, which encourages students to notify the authorities if they become aware of weapons or other threatening situations on campus, Bromery said. Students can call a 24-hour security hot line, (754) 321-0911, if they wish to remain anonymous.

Bromery said yesterday’s events were proof that the program, begun in 2001 in response to the Columbine High School massacre in Colorado, is working. Students and staff members seemed to be doing fine, and counselors were on hand to talk in case the incident prompted any distressing reminders of the November shooting.