Texas School Evacuation: Student In Custody After Bomb Threat At Seven Lakes High School in Katy

Seven Lakes High School, in Katy, Texas was evacuated Monday, Jan. 13, after a possible explosive device was found on its campus. Students and personnel were evacuated shortly after 11 a.m. and sent to an enclosed area on the school’s baseball and football fields while officers swept the campus. They were later moved to the Seven Lakes Junior High School, where parents were allowed to pick up their kids. All after school activities were canceled for the day while authorities determined if the device was an actual explosive. The FBI sent bomb technicians to help the county bomb squad in the case, said Agent Shauna Dunlap, a spokeswoman for the FBI in Houston, according to CNN.

A zip gun was found at the scene, which is a device altered to propel an object designed to cause harm, according to the school district’s webpage. Police took a student suspect into custody and charges are pending. Josh Rubin, a senior at Seven Lakes High School in Katy, described the suspect, who wasn't identified, as "kinda a pyrotechnic.” "He like[d] to make things with fire and all that," Rubin said. "He is honestly a nice person if you just talk to him but he would be a person I would expect would do something like this." "I think that it is pretty real. I don't think they would go through all this if it was just a prank," Beau O'Hara, a junior, said to UPI.