A Washington boy was arrested Wednesday after he brought a gun and 400 rounds of ammunition to school, allegedly intending to shoot a classmate who bullied his friend and called him "gay."
Vancouver police school resource officers detained the 11-year-old at 9 a.m. on Oct. 23 at Frontier Middle School after his mother called school administrators to alert them that her son might have taken knives to school, Fox's KPTV reports. Officers said they found a .22-caliber handgun in the boy's front pants pocket.
Authorities found a gun and 400 rounds of ammunition, as well as knives. Frontier Middle School and the adjacent Pioneer Elementary School were put on lockdown for two hours.
The boy, whose name has been withheld, later told school officials "a 'voice in his head' was telling him to kill" a classmate who had called his friend gay, according to a probable cause document obtained by NBC. He "stated a voice told him killing [another student] was a good idea; however he planned to just shoot [the student] in the arm and then shoot himself in the head."
It is not clear if the child who was supposedly being bullied is gay or not.
The boy is currently being held on charges of attempted assault, unlawful possession of a firearm and possession of a weapon at school, CNN reports. His case will be reviewed Friday.
"We are at a loss for words and deeply saddened for the fear that these circumstances have caused," his parents wrote in a statement to KPTV. "We are cooperating with law enforcement, school personnel and mental health officials to ensure our son gets the help he needs."
Police credited the mother with helping prevent a possible incident, according to an excerpt from the probable cause report.
"[I]t’s reasonable to conclude based on the above mentioned information that [the boy] acted with premeditated intent to cause the death of another," the statement read. "He brought a firearm to the school with bullets, but failed to carry the act out due to his mother’s willingness to report him as a danger to the school and because of the swift action taken by school administrators and VPD officers.”