


A Manhattan high school was placed on lockdown when a student passed off his dad’s gun to a classmate Friday afternoon — and investigators later recovered two firearms and a BB gun, according to cops and a local lawmaker.
The male student was inside the bathroom at Independence High School on 10th Avenue near West 56th Street in Hell’s Kitchen when he forked over the weapon to another student, cops said.
The boy who had handed off the gun was taken into custody but not immediately charged, police said.
Meanwhile, the school was locked down as all students were scanned to determine who had the gun, cops said.
Police were first called to the school around 1:10 p.m., cops said.
The school was placed on a “hard lockdown” and a search for the gun ensued with K-9s and numerous officers, NYPD Chief of Patrol John Chell said at a press conference Friday evening.
“A decision is made on the scene to evacuate the school and do a reverse scanning to find this firearm,” he said. “When they do the reverse scanning, they ultimately find the firearm we’re looking for — and they find a second firearm on a different student and they find an imitation pistol on a third student.”
By about 3:30 p.m., City Council Member Erik Bottcher, who represents the area of the school, posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, that the lockdown was lifted and students were being “safely dismissed.”
The school was still being thoroughly searched for any additional firearms on Friday night, Chell said.
It was not immediately clear whether anyone else was taken into custody.