NORRIDGEWOCK, Maine — An 8-year-old Mill Stream School student is in custody after shooting fellow students and the bus driver with a BB gun while riding the bus to school Friday morning, according to police.
“The boy firing the BB pistol had the BB gun wrestled away from [him] by one of the students aboard the bus,” Detective Lt. Carl E. Gottardi II of the Somerset County Sheriff’s Department said in a press release.
The boy who wrestled the gun away was 11 years old. There were 31 children on the bus.
Before the gun was taken, the younger boy was able to shoot three students, who are between the ages of 5 and 11, and the bus driver in the head or leg area. A school nurse checked on each of the victims and none received serious injury, Gottardi said.
The incident was reported to the Sheriff’s Department at 8:37 a.m. and Deputy Eugene Cole investigated the case.
The 8-year-old was placed into custody and later transferred to the Department of Human Services in Skowhegan, where officials were working on getting the boy medically evaluated, Gottardi’s statement said.
Police did not release the youngster’s name or hometown. Three communities, Norridgewock, Mercer and Smithfield, send students to Mill Stream School, which is in Norridgewock, the SAD 54 Web site states.