Seaside High student injured when teacher accidentally fired gun in
classroom

A teacher who also serves as a reserve police officer accidentally fired
a gun inside a Seaside High School classroom Tuesday, police said, and
three students were injured.

Dennis Alexander was teaching a course about gun safety for his
administration of justice class when his gun went off at 1:20 p.m.


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Teachers are not legally allowed to have firearms in California
classrooms, even if they have a concealed carry permit.

Alexander, who is a reserve officer for the Sand City Police Department,
was pointing his gun at the ceiling when it fired. Pieces of the ceiling
fell to the floor.

A news release from the Seaside Police Department said no one suffered
"serious injuries." One 17-year-old boy suffered moderate injuries when
fragments from the bullet ricocheted off the ceiling and lodged into his
neck, the student's father, Fermin Gonzales, told KSBW-TV.

The teacher had just told the class that he wanted to make sure his gun
wasn't loaded, when the gun fired, according to Gonzales.

"It's the craziest thing. It could have been very bad," Gonzales said.

Alexander was about to use the gun for a demonstration on how to disarm
someone, according to Gonzales.

The school day resumed as normal, and Seaside Police Department officers
went to the school to investigate.

The 17-year-old boy's parents were shocked when he returned home from
school with blood on his shirt and bullet fragments in his neck. The
student's parents rushed him to a hospital for X-rays.

"He's shaken up, but he's going to be OK," Gonzales told KSBW-TV. "I'm
just pretty upset that no one told us anything and we had to call the
police ourselves to report it."

Alexander was placed on administrative leave from his teaching position
at Seaside High School, and he was also placed on administrative leave
at the Sand City Police Department.

Sand City Police Chief Brian Ferrante said Alexander has been a reserve
Sand City police officer for the past 11 years. The 2013 Reserve Officer
of the Year is also a Seaside City Council member and Red Cross volunteer.

Whether to arm teachers with guns on campus to make American schools
safer has been a fiery question politically over the past few weeks,
following a mass shooting at a Florida high school.

Thousands of students are planning to walk out of their classrooms
Wednesday to raise awareness about gun violence and school safety.

Students who take Alexander's administration of justice class are
interested in public safety and becoming a police officer.

"I think a lot of questions on parents' minds are, why a teacher would
be pointing a loaded firearm at the ceiling in front of students,"
Monterey Peninsula Unified School District Superintendent PK Diffenbaugh
said. "Clearly, in this incident protocols were not followed."

This story originated from KSBW-TV.