A 15-year-old student at Glen Burnie High who police say went to the school Tuesday with a loaded .22-caliber handgun was arrested and charged as a juvenile with a weapons violation.

Officials credited three staff members at the school with detaining the student and discovering the gun in a book bag.

"I don't think it's possible to overstate the importance that an alert school secretary and two assistant principals — who didn't take simple answers that weren't adding up at face value — played in preventing what could have been a disastrous situation," said Bob Mosier, a spokesman for Anne Arundel public schools.

County police said the student, who was not identified, left the Baltimore Annapolis Road campus Tuesday morning, then was spotted by a school secretary as he returned shortly after noon. The secretary stopped the student, and two assistant principals asked him why he had left.

Police said the student's responses "raised questions." School staff searched his book bag and found the.22-caliber pistol containing seven rounds, police said.

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