By AP/KWMU
East St. Louis, IL – Authorities say the incidents were not related. No shots were fired and no one was injured.
Students at East St. Louis Senior High School were locked in classrooms for two hours while police searched for an unnamed 15-year-old boy. Authorities say he had brandished a loaded semiautomatic pistol. The teenager was not located after a police search, and had still not been found by police late Wednesday.
At Clark Middle School, police took an 11-year-old boy into custody after a teacher found him with a .25-caliber semiautomatic pistol. Police say that gun was not loaded, but the boy's 12-year-old brother was found holding bullets.
District Superintendent Nate Anderson says it was not immediately clear how the students got the guns inside the schools.