Teen carrying guns arrested at high school.

Byline: Rebecca Nolan The Register-Guard

Police arrested a 15-year-old Eugene boy who was discovered Wednesday armed with two loaded handguns and hiding in a shed at Sheldon High School, which had been the target of a threat of violence several hours earlier.

The boy was being held at the Lane County Juvenile Justice Center on several felony charges stemming from the school threat and an earlier theft of several guns from a home near Springfield, police said.

The Register-Guard does not normally identify juveniles in criminal cases unless they are charged with Measure 11 crimes.

The boy was arrested about 1 p.m. when students reported seeing him on the Sheldon athletic fields. Police and school officials had warned students that a former classmate might be armed and en route to campus.

"We don't know what was in his head," Eugene police Sgt. Rich Stronach said. "We're just glad we were able to take him into custody today."

The incident began shortly before 8 a.m. School resource officers got a secondhand report that a former student had threatened to assault two students at the school. The two targeted students and their families were notified immediately of the threat.

Officers tracked down the source of the rumor, who could not provide details or confirm whether the teen had any weapons, Stronach said.

As a result, the police response was downgraded, and the school resumed regular operations, Stronach said.

Meanwhile, officers searched for the boy, who was suspected of breaking into a house near Springfield on Tuesday and stealing several guns, Stronach said. They did not find him at home or elsewhere.

When students reported seeing the suspect on the athletic fields, the school was locked down briefly while officers searched for him.

They found him hiding inside a track and field shed, armed with the two guns, Stronach said. They ordered him out of the shed, and he obeyed, he said.

Police were trying to determine whether the guns were the ones stolen on Tuesday, he said.

The boy attended Sheldon as a sophomore during the 2005-06 school year, Eugene School District spokesman Kelly McIver said. He's not enrolled at any district school this fall.

For making the school threat, he faces charges of second-degree burglary and unlawful possession of a firearm, police said. He also faces charges of first-degree burglary, felony theft of a firearm and unlawful use of a firearm related to Tuesday's burglary. He faces an additional charge of unlawful use of a firearm for allegedly shooting a gun inside city limits on Tuesday night, Stronach said. Details on that incident were not available Wednesday.

Sheldon Principal Bob Bolden sent a letter home with students describing the day's events. In it, he wrote that school officials opted against an immediate lockdown after learning of the threat because "we wanted to keep the school day as normal as possible while keeping students safe."

Wednesday's arrest marked the second violent threat against a Eugene public school in the past week.

Last Thursday, police briefly locked down Willamette High School and nearby Cascade Middle School after learning that a former Willamette student allegedly had threatened to bring a gun to the school and open fire.

Police arrested 19-year-old Thomas Tyler Rinck about one block from the school on a charge of criminal mischief. He was unarmed, except for a small folding knife.

Rinck remained in the Lane County Jail on Wednesday for violating probation for a previous sexual abuse conviction.

Elsewhere, school attendance was optional at Elmira High School on Wednesday after a bomb threat was found Tuesday written on the wall of a boy's restroom. No explosives were found at the school.