A student has been taken into police custody after a person was reportedly seen with a gun inside a Flemingdon Park school on Thursday afternoon.
Police say they were first dispatched to Marc Garneau Collegiate Institute near Don Mills Road and Overlea Boulevard at around 12:25 p.m. for a gun call.
The school was placed under lockdown as a result, though that order has since been lifted.
Nearby Valley Park Middle School was also briefly placed under a hold-and-secure order after a number of Marc Garneau Collegiate Institute students sought safety there, police say.
“There was information that a gun was seen in the school. That's the information we have this time. I can't comment on the circumstances that led up to the events,” Insp. Lori Kranenburg told reporters at the scene. “All I can tell you is that we were called here for a person with a gun, that an investigation was commenced and that one student was taken into custody. Charges have not yet been laid.”
Police have not provided any other details about the incident, including whether or not a weapon was recovered.
However, video provided to CTV News and CP24 purportedly shows the events leading up to the lockdown.
In it, a number of students appear to be seen fighting in a gym. One individual can then be heard screaming “he has a gun, he has a gun” repeatedly.
The footage then shows students exiting the gym.
Kranenburg said that the school was placed under a lockdown “for the safety of staff and students.”
She said that while there was “information that a gun was seen in the school,” police are not able to confirm whether a firearm was in fact present at this time.
“The investigation is continuing,” she said.
The lockdown at Marc Garneau Collegiate Institute on Thursday represents just the latest weapon-related call at a TDSB school.
Last week, a gun was fired inside a bathroom at an East York secondary school, resulting in a bullet ricocheting and ending up in a shoe belonging to a staff member.
A 13-year-old boy is also facing charges after he allegedly pointed a replica toy gun and demanded money from students at a middle school in Etobicoke on Tuesday.
“I think it is important to know that this is not a single school board issue. This is an issue that involves the school board as part of the community and it is going to take a lot of effort, a lot of work and a lot of action between the school board, all its community partners and all levels of government (to address it). But that is happening right now. The conversations are happening right now,” TDSB spokesperson Sherry Schwartz-Maltz told reporters on Thursday.
