POLICE FIND WEAPONS ON ACADEMY PSVE STUDENTS

EBENEZER--Police found drugs and weapons in students' bags at St.
Maarten Academy PSVE during a one-day control at the school on
Wednesday aimed at stopping violence.

Then the officers gathered the students of the vocational secondary
school together to discuss youth violence, drug use and criminality.
Police had done the same at a St. Eustatius high school eight days ago.

PSVE faculty asked officers to search students in response to
numerous violent incidents in and out of the school involving
weapons, police said Wednesday. The officers found four pairs of
scissors, two knives, marijuana and some matches and lighters on the teenagers.

"The main focus of the control was to check all school bags of the
students for weapons and drugs," reported police spokesman Inspector
Ricardo Henson. "The purpose of this action was in connection with
recently increasing amount of serious fights or confrontations among
students from that school and other schools in the area, whereby
weapons are also increasingly coming into play."

A "big fight" that was allegedly brewing among several groups of
machete-swinging young men near the school just last week fizzled out
before igniting. Students of at least three different schools had
been witnesses to large fight outside the school a week before, while
high school students had been seen peeling their enraged peers out of
explosive conflicts in October.

One fourth-year student was held for questioning when officers found
a .38 calibre bullet in his bag. The unnamed young man stayed in
police custody until his parents arrived.

Police talked about the impact of gang and weapon violence on
students. "After the speech the students were given [DARE wristbands]
as a symbol of their part in the fight against violence and drug
abuse. The controls ended without any incidents," Henson said in a
written statement, commending both students and faculty for their
cooperation. "This control was a great success and we hope to carry
out these types of random controls on a more frequent basis in the future."