PLAINS TOWNSHIP, LUZERNE COUNTY (WBRE/WYOU) — A school resource officer was hospitalized after a violent confrontation with a student inside a classroom at a Luzerne County middle school.
It happened last week at Solomon Plains Middle School that’s part of the Wilkes-Barre Area School District.
The district’s Chief of Police Operations, Carl Gembitski, says the confrontation involving a middle school student happened in a classroom last Thursday at Solomon Plains.
A school resource officer was called in to assist, and the school was placed on a “restrictive movement order” as a safety precaution.
According to the chief, the juvenile became aggressive during the incident, and the school resource officer was taken to the hospital for treatment and later released.
“On Thursday, May 18th, at the Solomon Middle School, there was a disruption in a classroom caused by a student that required a response from the School Resource Officer. Additional assistance was requested as a precautionary measure. Due to this incident still being under investigation, no further information is available at this time,” Wilkes-Barre Area Superintendent Brian Costello said in a statement.
We spoke with parents who did not wish to be identified.
“I think they could have notified us a little bit sooner but I feel like they did the best they could in that situation because we don’t have many situations like that so I can’t fault them for that,” said one parent.
“I mean these kids, they’re elementary kids. Mine’s an 11-year-old, he doesn’t know. He happened to be over there for spring concert practice and all chaos broke out. I mean I guess the school handled it the best they could but for notification purposes, we should have been notified immediately following,” another parent said.
An investigation into the incident is ongoing, and school officials could not say if the student was expelled.
Eyewitness News was told the school resource officer is on the mend and expected to eventually return to work.
