Teen arrested with unloaded rifle at northwest valley school

A former student of Northwest Career and Technical Academy was arrested Friday morning after school police officers found an unloaded semiautomatic rifle inside his car while it was parked in the campus parking lot, Las Vegas police said.

Jake Howell, 18, of Las Vegas was taken into custody on suspicion of possessing a dangerous weapon on school property, a gross misdemeanor, said Capt. Ken Young of the Clark County School District police.

The arrest caps a week of escalating, unsubstantiated rumors of violence in schools, which prompted Las Vegas police agencies to call a news conference Tuesday to reassure parents and discourage people from spreading misinformation.

The problem snowballed after the mass school shooting in Newton, Conn., on Dec. 14, where a lone gunman killed 20 children and six adults after fatally shooting his mother in her home.

At least one district school, Foothill High School in Henderson, prohibited students from bringing backpacks to campus Friday, the last day of school before winter break, to calm families and students in the wake of the growing concern about school safety.

"We don't know what his intentions were," Young said of Howell. "It was a student acting out of the norm."

The rifle was described by police as an SKS assault weapon.

It's a semiautomatic, which means he would have to pull the trigger several times instead of holding the trigger down and spraying bullets automatically.

According to Young, rounds of ammunition were found inside the vehicle. The rifle was not registered. It was discovered after police acted on a tip from a parent. The rifle was visible inside the car.

"We do look out. We take the rumors very seriously," Young said. "We're thankful that we got the information. We aregrateful to the parent."

The possession of such a firearm, however, would not have been a crime if the same scenario were to have played out off school property, said Capt. Tom Roberts of the Metropolitan Police Department.

Nevada law does not require weapons such as the one in Howell's possession to be registered, he said.

The SKS is a Soviet semiautomatic rifle designed in 1943. In the early 1950s, the Soviets stopped using the SKS and started using the AK-47. Today, the rifle is mostly used for ceremonial purposes.

Young said Howell was visiting friends on campus at the time of his arrest but would not elaborate on who the parent was and how the information was reported.

The investigation, Young said, started at 8 a.m.

The school is at 8200 W. Tropical Parkway, east of Durango Drive, in northwest Las Vegas.

Contact reporter Tom Ragan at tragan@reviewjournal.com or 702-224-5512.