A man whose teen-aged son brought a gun to Hilltop High School in Chula Vista pleaded guilty Tuesday to charges of felony child abuse and possession of a firearm and ammunition by a felon.
Zachariah Joseph Dow faces up to eight years in state prison when he is sentenced Sept. 3, said Deputy District Attorney Kristi Hein.
Dow, 37, surrendered to Chula Vista police the night of May 21, about seven hours after the gun scare at his son’s high school. The boy was 14 at the time.
An assistant principal at the Claire Avenue campus made an emergency call late that morning to report that several students had seen a ninth-grader displaying a handgun in class.
“They claimed the suspect student … made statements indicating that the gun was loaded and that he could potentially use (it) to shoot someone at school,” police Lt. Fritz Reber said.
When officers went to the suspect’s classroom and summoned him, he stood up and reached for his backpack, though not in “an aggressive way,” the lieutenant said, and they rushed in and took him into custody without incident. No one was hurt despite the scare.
Inside the boy’s bag was a loaded .44-caliber revolver, according to police. Friends of the arrested boy reported he had been bullied at school.
The teen was booked into juvenile hall on suspicion of bringing a loaded firearm onto school grounds. Detectives later determined that the suspect’s father owned the gun.
An unsecured .22 caliber pistol also was found under a mattress in the man’s home, according to police.
– City News Service
