Features

BHS Student Gun Case Not Yet in DA’s Hands By JESSE ALLEN-TAYLOR

Staff
Tuesday March 29, 2005

The assistant Alameda County district attorney in charge of juvenile prosecutions says that he has not yet seen a report on a female student accused of bringing a gun on to the Berkeley High campus one month after Berkeley police officials say they sent it to the district attorney’s office. 

“Where this stuff has gone is anybody’s guess,” said Assistant District Attorney Walter Jackson. “The Berkeley police told me they put it in the mail, but because we don’t have anybody’s name that they gave it to, I don’t have anybody to contact directly to find out where the report is. I still haven’t seen hide nor hair of it.” 

The student was arrested by Berkeley police and later expelled by the Berkeley Unified School District for allegedly bringing a loaded pistol to school in her backpack in early February. Berkeley High officials said that the girl told them that the gun was given to her for safekeeping by her father, and brought to school inadvertently. Because she is a juvenile, the student’s name has never been released by either the school district or the police department. 

Berkeley Police Information Officer Joe Okies said earlier this month that the report was turned over to the district attorney’s office the first of March. The district attorney could charge either the student or her father, or both, but not without first seeing the police report. 

Jackson said police reports on possible crimes by juveniles first go to an officer in the Alameda County Probation Department and then to the district attorney’s Office. “But some of the probation officers are so backed up, it takes months to get a report off their desks,” Jackson said. He added that he recently had one case where the probation officer had not processed a report for a year. 

Calls to the Juvenile Division of the Probation Department concerning the case were not returned.