Bullied Buddy Taylor Student Arrested for Bringing BB Gun to School for ‘Protection’; 4 Student Arrests in a Week

A 13-year-old Buddy Taylor Middle School students became the fourth Palm Coast teen in the span of six days to face a felony charge and arrest, in this case for bringing a BB gun in the shape of a Glock. The student said he did so to protect himself against bullies, knowing that school officials would not protect him.

Parents at school board meetings have repeatedly alerted district officials of their concerns about bullying. Fr the 13-year-old Buddy Taylor student, a resident of Seminole Woods, the bullying is irrelevant: he faces a felony charge of possession of a weapon on school property, and a misdemeanor charge of possession of a BB gun by a child younger than 16.




Two students who knew of the BB gun talked about it in class, which alerted school officials. The 13 year old was summoned with his belongings to the office of Steven Everage, one of the deans, who also summoned the school resource deputy. The student told the deputy that he brought the weapon to campus to “protect himself,” according to the student’s arrest report. The student had not filed complaints or written statements to the dean’s office about the bullying previously. He told the deputy he wasn;t thinking, and now realized he’d made a mistake.

“I spoke to him about the consequences, should he brandish the weapon,” the deputy wrote in the arrest report, “this incident could have been much worse.” The weapon looks like a replica of a Glock. The student was “highly emotional and explained that people in his class are [bullying] him about his race and [he] does not trust any of the staff to do anything about it, so he did not tell anyone,” the report states. The child is of Asian extraction.

The deputy spoke to the child’s mother, summarizing the incident and the impending arrest. The mother told the deputy she had bought the gun a while back, believing it was a toy gun. The deputy told her the boy could not legally possess a BB gun, and that it was no toy. The boy was arrested and processed at the Flagler County jail.




A week ago (on Jan. 24) a 14-year-old girl was arrested and charged with a second-degree felony for allegedly sending video threats laced in racist and homophobic language targeting at least two students at her former high school in Ohio. Days later two Flagler Palm Coast High School students were arrested for trading threats through texts.

“It’s an unfortunate situation that this child felt he needed to protect himself, but bringing a weapon to school, even it is not real, is not the solution,” Sheriff Rick Staly was quoted as saying in a release. “In the last two weeks we have made multiple arrests of students. Parents need to know and understand the law on BB guns and never remove or paint over the orange caps that tell others the ‘gun’ is a replica. This could have had a tragic and deadly outcome. I commend the school faculty that ‘heard something, said something’ and took immediate action.”