Student Arrested After Gun Is Located At Cleveland High School

Thomas

A Cleveland High School student is facing charges after a handgun was found on campus. School administrators contract a Johnston County Sheriff’s Office school resource officer assigned to the Cleveland High campus earlier today (Wednesday) about a disturbance.

The officer, who was on school grounds, responded to the office area and reportedly found 18 year-old Juelle Amos Thomas of Smithfield acting abnormally. Through an investigation by the resource officer, a search of the student’s vehicle, parked on campus, took place.

Inside Thomas’ car, a 9mm handgun with 9mm ammunition, a fixed-blade knife and drug paraphernalia was located and seized by law enforcement.

Thomas was charged with felony possession of a gun on educational property, misdemeanor possession of a weapon on educational property, and misdemeanor possession of drug paraphernalia.

In a message to parents today, Principal Jenna Sauls Hairr said the gun was unloaded.

“The weapon never came into our building, and no threat was made to our campus or our students,” the principal stated. “All students and staff are safe and have been safe throughout the course of the day, and again the gun never came inside the building. Law enforcement was immediately notified once the weapon was discovered, and it was quickly and appropriately removed from our campus by law enforcement. We will continue with our normal daily operations for today, but wanted you to be aware that this occurred. We ask you to remind your students to speak with an adult if they ever see or hear something they are uncomfortable with while they are on our school campus.”

School officials said the incident was very isolated and controlled quickly.

Thomas is being held under an $11,000 bond at the Johnston County Jail.


This story has been updated

20 COMMENTS

  1. ‘member when kids left their rifles and shotguns in their trucks at school and no one batted an eye? Pepperidge Farm ‘members!

      • I am in my 60s and God has never been in my public school life…so when exactly was God in public schools? Why should God be in school? How about Allah? Jehovah? Budha? There are private schools and church, temples, mosques etc., if you want to indoctrinate your children.

    • exactly but wants to be on my case i wasnt even in school lol it was just there it’s kids with whole a** switches inside school but they worried bout my legal firearm that i use for range nd protection plus the news is all lie’s that it 100% not what happened dont worry yall imma
      beat this

    • Yes I remember. We also used to stick our hands down in huge cookie jars at the corner store. Those were wonderful days. We live in a changed world. I doubt this young man was planning hunting animals with this 9mm….

    • I love those good ol’ days — lead paint in the classrooms, asbestos in the duct work, and DDT sprayed on the fields!

      • Now the paint, asbestos and DDT have just been replaced with processed foods with no nutritional value, high levels of mercury in vaccines, and glyphosate on our produce… no real changes just different chemicals to still harm humanity.

  2. If the kid is ec, he will be back in school in ten days. Unless they have a manifestation hearing in which they could assign more but the liberal psychologists, parents and others will claim he brought it because it is a manifestation of his disability. It happened to me, kid brought a 6” knife to school and they didn’t spend one day out ( not in joco). We also had a kid bring a BB gun pistol to school and while being suspended the parent was upset because the SRO was allowed to have one…..seriously, that’s the kind of parents there are.

    • He will be able to attend Safe School but will not be allowed to continue at Cleveland HS. If one has a weapon at school, there is no beating the charge. Court, lawyer, fines, community service, and a felony attachment is the normal for a first time offender in JOCO. That’s with a good lawyer representing him.

      • Sam T all true. Don’t forget the monthly meetings with a probation officer and the probation officer will visit the home of the individual at least once. A student who transports a weapon on school ground has a lot of troubles and headaches ahead.

  3. I agree, the good ol days of toting hunting rifles around in trucks at school are gone. But this kid had a pistol and drug paraphernalia. He was up to no good, he wasn’t even old enough to have that handgun. Glad they caught it, my 14 yo son year old goes there. I don’t think he had it to do any kind of harm like planning a school shooting or anything, but if he ever had an altercation with another student that were to escalate like every fight between kids nowadays where they can’t settle it with their hands like the good ol days, he may have used that weapon.

  4. Definitely agree with all of you and as one person stated this is becoming a difficult time to live due to the fact that people have turned from God and the good values we once had. You can’t keep adding water to honey and not expect it not to become diluted if you know what I mean.

  5. This SRO officer stationed at the high school deserves some credit, he acted to prevent the gun and ammunition from entering the school, if not on that day, then in all probability a week or a month from now. All too often we hear about these school gun incidents when it’s too late, after lives are lost. This time, thankfully, our community was saved from that trama.

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