Students get shocked at Palmer High

April 29, 2005

KATE GOLDEN/Frontiersman reporter

PALMER - A 16-year-old male student reportedly used a stun gun to shock five peers Friday at Palmer High School, just days after a 17-year-old's alleged Monday threats to shoot his fellow students resulted in his arrest Tuesday.

The 16-year-old, whom school employees and law-enforcement officers did not name because he is a minor, was suspended from school. Palmer police have forwarded charges of third-degree assault and fourth-degree misconduct involving weapons to Juvenile Intake.

"School officials are absolutely confident that there's no connection between what happened last week and this incident," Principal Wolfgang Winter said.

He added: "The timing could have been a whole lot better."

Just after lunch Friday, a student approached Winter and said he'd been shocked in his side, "right above his hip," according to Palmer police officer Shane Lacroix.

"He said it was a burning sensation, and that he could hear the crackle of the stun gun," Lacroix said.

Given the tumult of the earlier part of the week, there were already two Palmer Police officers on school property. Lacroix was one.

School officials interviewed the suspect and several other students. They found the weapon in question, a 300,000-volt gun that could pass as a flashlight except for the two metal prongs sticking out of the top, stashed in the backpack of one of the suspect's friends.

"It's enough to incapacitate someone," Lacroix said of the voltage rating. Stun guns vary from 10,000 to 800,000 volts, he said.

Stun guns can legally be sold in Alaska, but not to minors. The student arrested did not say where he had obtained the gun he carried.

Of the five male students allegedly shocked, only one came forward. He was not a friend but an acquaintance of the suspect, Lacroix said.

Lacroix said that as far as he knew, the electrical shocks were meant as a joke. He said the suspect made no threats, but simply walked up to people and shocked them.

"A young man made a very poor decision and his timing couldn't have been any worse," Lacroix said.

The school board-approved student handbook's weapons section says possession of a stun gun in school without permission will result in a 30-day suspension and referral of charges to law enforcement. Factors considered in weighing the severity are the intent of the possessor, the potential degree of danger the item presents, and the threat to students or school staff members' safety.

The suspect and his parents have not appealed the suspension, Winter said Tuesday.

Winter has seen stun guns in Palmer High "on occasion," he said.

"I think the community view of those devices is not the same as if it was [an] 'actual weapon,' " he said, like a gun or a switchblade. "Culturally, people are more wary of those types of weapons."

The past week's tumult has not caused Winter to rethink how to handle violence in schools, he said. Nor has he received much negative feedback from concerned parents. Community response, he said, has been overwhelmingly positive "during this rather interesting week."

"It's just very gratifying to hear from virtually everybody who shared an opinion that they feel things were done appropriately," he said.

Contact Kate Golden at

352-2284 or kate.golden@

frontiersman.com.