Three firefighters hurt during search of exploding pen suspect's home in Charlotte, NC. School confiscates all pens.
An exploding pen at a school injured one student on Monday morning. Three firefighters helping search a suspect’s home were also slightly hurt during a second explosion. Investigators are back at the home today:
Two teenage brothers and their mother are in custody after an explosion at Turning Point Academy on Monday morning.
A 15-year-old, a 16-year-old and their mother are in custody, police said. The 16-year-old was arrested at the school, and the 15-year-old and the mother were taken into custody after police searched a home in the 10600 block of Mount Holly Road. Both teens live in the home, police said. Their names have not been released. Two teenage brothers and their mother are in custody after an explosion at Turning Point Academy on Monday morning.
A 15-year-old, a 16-year-old and their mother are in custody, police said. The 16-year-old was arrested at the school, and the 15-year-old and the mother were taken into custody after police searched a home in the 10600 block of Mount Holly Road. Both teens live in the home, police said. Their names have not been released.
Two teens who live at the house have been charged in the case. One, a 16-year-old, was arrested at the school. His 15-year-old brother was arrested hours later, when authorities searched the teens’ house.
“Hazmat and other agencies continue to remove hazardous materials from the 10600 block of Mount Holly Road,” said CMPD Officer Rosalyn Harrington, a spokeswoman for police.
Meanwhile, classes resumed at 8 a.m. today at Turning Point Academy, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg alternative school on West Sugar Creek Road where the pen exploded in a student’s hands about 9 a.m. Monday.
Officials said the three firefighters suffered minor injuries during an explosion as they conducted a field test on a substance found at the scene.
The first explosion happened about 9 a.m. in a classroom at the school, in the 2300 block of West Sugar Creek Road. Turning Point is an alternative school for students who have run into disciplinary problems at other places in Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools.
LaTarzja Henry, a CMS spokeswoman, said a student reached into his desk to get a pen. “When he took the top off the ink pen, it exploded,” Henry said.
Officer Robert Fey, a police spokesman, said the force of the explosion sent fragments of the pen into the boy’s arm and chest and burned his hand.
One possibility was that the student was a victim of a prank that has become a viral video on YouTube. A small amount of explosive material is inserted in a pen, and it explodes when someone pulls the cap off.
