LASARA — School district officials here are stepping up security amid parents’ concerns stemming from the arrest of a 19-year-old student who authorities said was caught with a loaded pistol.
On Wednesday, Carlos Raul Martinez, 19, remained in the Willacy County Jail, charged with unlawfully carrying of a weapon in a prohibited place, theft of a firearm and tampering with identification numbers, for which a judge ordered him held on a total of $45,000 bail.
However, Martinez was being held without bail following his failure to appear in court on 2021 charges stemming from three counts of possession of dangerous drugs and one count of possession of marijuana, officials said.
In this farming village in northwest Willacy County, Martinez becomes the first student accused of bringing a gun on campus, Superintendent Alejos Salazar said Wednesday.
“This was very much an isolated incident,” he said. “Lasara is a pretty peaceful community but no school is immune to what happens now. You just never know so you’ve got to be ready to act and act quickly.”
On Feb. 8, sheriff’s deputies arrested Martinez after a student told administrators he might have a gun, Salazar said.
Salazar said the school’s front-door metal detector failed to activate after officials turned down its sensor following numerous false alarms, adding the metal detector didn’t malfunction.
Now, officials are planning to hire a school police officer, Salazar told parents in a letter posted on the school’s Facebook page.
Since the incident, officials have reset the metal detector now manned by two personnel who check students starting in fifth grade in the building which houses students from kindergarten to high school, he said.
“Now these extra precautions are being taken,” he said.
After a student alerted officials Martinez might have a gun, Principal William Bardwell took him into an office toward the back of the campus before sheriff’s deputies arrested him, Salazar said.
Bardwell “asked if he should lock down the school,” Salazar wrote in a letter posted on the school’s Facebook page.
“I asked him if he had immediate access to the student with the weapon and his response was ‘yes’. I directed him to first call the sheriff’s department and then secure the student with the weapon, which he did so immediately. I joined them and we kept the situation calm and under control until the sheriff’s department arrived, which happened shortly after. When the deputies entered the room, they quickly handcuffed the student and secured the weapon.”
According to the sheriff’s department’s Facebook page, Martinez was arrested with a .22-caliber semi-automatic pistol whose serial number was “filed off.”
“He informed them he had a gun in his back pack,” Salazar said.
Some parents are demanding tighter security.
On Facebook, Shreena Lopez called for a metal detector.
Meanwhile, Melinda D. Lopez wanted the district’s elementary and high school students housed in separate buildings.
“High school kids and elementary kids should not all be in the same building!” she posted.
“This should be an eye-opener for the rest of the schools in Willacy!” she added.
On Wednesday, Salazar said the district’s enrollment of 330 students didn’t warrant construction of more campuses.
“We don’t have enough students to merit three separate campuses,” he said. “We’re doing things here the way it’s been done forever.”
Instead, grade school students are housed toward the front of the building, middle school’s housed toward the middle and the high school’s housed toward the back.
“They’re constantly under adult supervision,” he said. “The little ones get escorted straight to their classrooms by adults. There is no milling around. As they walk in, they go straight to their classrooms.”
While breakfast is delivered to classes, officials separate students, based on grade levels, into six cafeteria shifts during lunch, he said.
Meanwhile, parent Veronica Medrano wanted to know why Salazar didn’t order a lockdown.
“Students should’ve been on lock down and parents should’ve been notified ASAP he had a loaded gun,” she posted on Facebook.
Salazar said he decided not to order a lockdown.
“Questions have been raised as to why a lockdown was not initiated,” he wrote in his Facebook post.
“During my initial assessment, I found it more necessary to secure the student and weapon versus locking a student with a gun in a room with other students and staff members in a state of panic and high alert which could have been a very detrimental situation. To verify and improve our response to the situation, I reached out to the Texas School Safety Center, the state’s leading resource with school safety initiatives and mandates, and I discussed our scenario with them. They informed me that the way in which we controlled the situation while avoiding any unnecessary panic was the appropriate response, especially since we were able to remove the student and weapon quickly and safely without a negative outcome.”
EDITOR’S NOTE: This post has been updated to clarify the reason the metal detector failed to activate.
