Police: Burke student brings gun to school, brags about it, gets arrested, bites officer

UPDATE: Bail set at $10,000 at his arraignment today in Dorchester District Court.

Boston Police report arresting a student at Burke High School in Dorchester yesterday on charges of illegal possession of a firearm, resisting arrest and assault and battery on a police officer resulting in injuries.

Police say the 17-year-old, whom they did not identify, packed a gun in his bookbag and then "discussed having the firearm to groups of students throughout the day." Some of those students alerted school officials.

Around 2:10 p.m., police say:

Officers located the student in the classroom and attempted to remove the student from the classroom to speak with him. The student became physically combative with officers and officers attempted to place the student in handcuffs for officers and the other students' safety. Officers gave several verbal commands to the suspect and to no avail. Officers observed the suspect attempting to reach in his book bag, while officers were trying to control the suspect’s combative behavior.

Officers were able to take control of the situation and one officer suffered minor injuries to his wrist when the suspect bit him.

During a search of the suspect's bag officers recovered a firearm.

The same basic thing happened at the Burke last year.

A BPS spokesman said this morning:

We will want to more fully understand the circumstances of this case and will then go from there regarding additional steps, protocols or procedures that we will put in place. As always, student safety is our top priority and we want to do everything we can to make sure our security procedures are effective one hundred percent of the time.

Acting Police Commissioner William Evans praised the students who turned the teen in.

I'm really proud of the kids at the Burke School for taking the quick action they took and I want to commend them for standing up to gun violence. They did exactly what they were supposed to do in a situation like that and, thanks to them, an arrest was made and a gun recovered.