Pelican Parts Forums - "heavily armed Emergency Service Unit cops raced to Public School"

What breakdown in communication let to a heavly armed SWAT Team gearing up to pick up an unloaded gun? The story of a stupid woman, a stupid teen son and her child. Nothing like overeaction.
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS

Friday, May 25th 2007, 4:00 AM

Traffic agent Andrea Clarke was charged yesterday after son took gun to school.

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A 7-year-old smuggled a .38-caliber pistol into a Queens elementary school yesterday, terrifying his classmates and landing his mother and brother in police custody, authorities said.

The gun scare ended when the second-grader's teacher calmly confiscated the revolver after another student told her that the boy was showing off the weapon to classmates.

"Give me what's in your pocket," the teacher, Debra Mergenthaler, told the boy, according to a source.

The child obeyed and quickly handed over the illegal handgun. The teacher then called school security officers, the source said.

"I know I did a brave thing, but I did what any teacher would do," Mergenthaler told the Daily News. "I did it because I love children."

Within minutes of receiving an emergency call, heavily armed Emergency Service Unit cops raced to Public School 63 in Ozone Park. The officers confiscated the unloaded gun, which had a defaced serial number, and brought the boy to the 106th Precinct stationhouse, police said.

The boy's mother, Andrea Clarke, an NYPD traffic agent, and his 14-year-old brother were later arrested in connection with the 12:45 p.m. incident at the Sutter Ave. school.

Cops were investigating how the younger boy got his hands on the gun. His teenage brother told cops that he had found the weapon, sources said.

When his mother found out, instead of calling the cops, she simply told her elder son to get rid of the weapon, the sources said.

The 14-year-old, who was not identified by police, said he ignored his mother and hid the gun in the family's 77th St. home in Ozone Park - where his younger brother found it, the sources said.

But cops were investigating whether the teen had actually obtained the gun from his mother's boyfriend, who is wanted on several warrants.

Cops were hunting him last night.

"Nobody in that family should have had a gun," one source said. "The kids are 7 and 14, and mom is a traffic agent, armed only with a summons book."

After spending several hours at the 106th Precinct stationhouse, Clarke, who celebrated her 35th birthday yesterday, was charged with endangering the welfare of a child and reckless endangerment. Her 14-year-old son also was hit with reckless endangerment charges.

Earlier at the elementary school, students said word spread quickly about the gun.

"I was scared. I saw the cops," said 11-year-old Christian Cuevas.

Christian's father, Edwin, 37, said he's grateful that his son and other students were not seriously hurt, but called for better security screening. "That's horrible. It's shocking," he said as he prepared to bring Christian to a Little League game. "They ought to put metal detectors, even in public schools. They ought to do something."

mwhite@nydailynews.com