Teen Holds Students, Teacher Hostage At Gunpoint: Classmates And Teacher Taken As Hostages At High School

A teen held students and a teacher hostage at his high school in Philippi, West Virginia, on Tuesday. An armed 14-year-old boy took several classmates and a teacher as hostages in the afternoon.

WBOY-TV reports that West Virginia State Police say the teen walked into Philip Barbour High School and held the hostages on a second-level floor of the facility. Police negotiated with the troubled teen several hours before everyone was eventually released. The unidentified teen surrendered to officers. No shots were fired, state troopers tell West Virginia Metro News.

Authorities took the teen into custody and admitted him to a hospital for evaluation. Following that, he’ll be detained.

Barbour County Prosecutor Leckta Poling wants to file charges against the boy, but hasn’t specified what they would be. Poling told reporters Tuesday evening, “We are pursuing charges against the juvenile at this time. Those are closed proceedings. So there will not be any information released about that at this time.”

State Police Capt. Dave Reider confirmed that school would resume as usual on Wednesday, but that law enforcement would be present. There was a two-hour delay in the morning, however. Other than the teen who held the students and teacher hostage, there hasn’t been any sign of imminent danger to students or teachers.

When the boy took his classmates and the teacher hostage, staff at the school were able to evacuate most of the students to the football field. Attendance was taken before they were excused to their afternoon buses.

The hostages were released uninjured when the suspect agreed to let them go.

Reider reveals that authorities “were able to talk to the juvenile subject inside and had him surrender without incident.”

Parents were alerted to the school hostage situation and were met at Route 250, which was closed. Reider says the parents did a good job of maintaining patience during the harrowing ordeal. He commends the parents for being “very cooperative and very patient. I can’t thank them enough for that.” He adds that these “types of situations can often times become problematic if we don’t have that patience. Tragedy, today, was averted because of that.”

A motive behind the teen taking the students and teacher hostage hasn’t been revealed to the public.

The incident is under investigation, but the public is being minimally informed of the progress being made at this time. It’s unknown where the student got the weapon that he was armed with before taking the students and teacher hostage.

[Photo Credit: YouTube screenshot]