Bend-La Pine Schools released a report on Jan. 23, following a months-long investigation into the handling of an unprecedented event in October, when a 7th grader at Pilot Butte Middle School brought a loaded handgun to campus, along with a list of targets.
According to the report, the event marked the first known time a BLPS student had brought a loaded gun to a District school with the intent to harm. It was a violation of the District’s zero-tolerance policy for students having firearms or weapons on campus.
The entire school shooting threat, from when the 12-year-old told a teacher they had a weapon to when the teacher escorted the student outside and an on-site student resource officer took the gun, lasted under two minutes. It was, Superintendent Steve Cook wrote in the report’s introduction, the best outcome District officials could hope for.
“For something like this, it’s important to analyze and correct oversights, errors or weaknesses in our safety system, from how we prepare and respond to how we follow through after the initial incident is over,” Cook wrote. “It’s just as important — and perhaps more so with this incident — to examine and learn from everything that went right and served to circumvent a potentially tragic outcome to this event.”
Had the event happened a few weeks prior, the response to the threat might have looked a lot different. Just two weeks before the Oct. 21 incident, a Bend Police Department School Resource Officer was assigned to Pilot Butte Middle School. Before then, PBMS and Mountain View High School shared an SRO — but given the number of calls for service experienced at PBMS over the past few years the District, Bend PD decided the school needed a dedicated officer. Data from Bend PD shows that since 2021 calls for service have doubled at PBMS, with a total of 280 calls for all of 2024. In 2021, the number was 136. Calls for service can include everything from a drug offense to a stolen bike to an officer conducting a follow-up on a previous case or call.
In addition to noting what worked well, the District report also detailed “growth opportunities.” Among the findings were that staff could have used a “hold protocol” while the student was detained and interviewed to determine whether he/she was working independently. Though Scott Maben, director of communications for BLPS, said that in this case, it wasn’t found to be necessary.
“It was a unique incident in that the threat was neutralized so quickly, and the determination was made fairly soon after that,” Maben told the Source Weekly. “It was a judgment call in the moment, and in the end, it was an acceptable decision to make.”
Other areas for improvement noted in the report were around communications — specifically how potential victims were to be notified, which resulted in “…some confusion for families of targeted students as well as for school staff on the appropriate next steps to support victims,” and in who is notified when. In this case, media outlets and the public were told of the incident before PBMS families were directly notified by the District.
Despite the incident, the District did not find it needed any significant overhauls to its safety protocols or that systems needed to change. There are no immediate plans to add metal detectors at schools because, according to the report, a five-year data review on the number of juvenile weapons charges in Bend showed only three arrests over that timeline. Only one — from the October incident in question — was at a school.
“When considering data on firearms and other weapons used by our student-aged population in the District, the history, probability and vulnerability analysis provides us with data to show that metal detectors are not necessarily the best resource to prevent firearm-related incidents in our community,” the report read. Instead, BLPS will continue working with advocacy groups to provide gun safes and locks to people in the community, along with sharing information on safe gun storage practices.
Likewise, the report found no need to install a wireless panic alarm system or artificial intelligence cameras at the time.
“We already have systems in place for alerting law enforcement directly that help as needed,” Maben said. “We have ways to place a school into lockdown or a secure hold very quickly,” he said, adding that he did not want to go into too much detail on the systems in place and potentially open schools to security risks.
“We don’t want to be out there saying that our response system is perfect,” Maben added. “There was a lot that did go well that day, and in the end, no one was harmed physically. I think there was harm done emotionally and psychologically. You know, the sense of safety and security that students and families feel can be rattled with something like this,” he said.
The 12-year-old who brought the gun to school was arrested on Oct. 21 and charged with suspicion of attempted murder, first-degree attempted assault and unlawful use of a weapon. Police later found that the student brought the gun from home, and a parent was subsequently charged with failing to secure the firearm. It was the first time Bend PD had ever issued such a citation.
This article appears in The Source Weekly January 23, 2025.
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“The 12-year-old who brought the gun to school was arrested on Oct. 21 and charged with suspicion of attempted murder, first-degree attempted assault and unlawful use of a weapon. Police later found that the student brought the gun from home, and a parent was subsequently charged with failing to secure the firearm. It was the first time Bend PD had ever issued such a citation.”
How about an update on these issues, especially the last word: “citation”. Did enabling a minor to gain access to a firearm, generate a hit list, and bring all the ingredients into a middle school setting, result in just a “citation”? Is that a penalty akin to doing 35 mph in a 25 zone?
I’m not saying it is; I’m looking for more info on what has been done to discourage this situation in the future. The minor was charged with a slew of adult crimes. What was/is being done to the parent(s) who were the guardians of both the minor and the weapon(s)?
The gigantic red flag waving over this incident is the 280 calls to the police in a year. Aren’t there only 180 school days?! What on earth is going on at this school, and how does posting a resource officer there do anything more than react to a problem? One kid bringing a gun to school is looking like the top of the iceberg here. I’m afraid it could be just a matter of time before one of the other 280 incidents grows into another newsworthy event, possibly one that ends in tragedy. What is the district and/or school doing to prevent that?