Howard County police have arrested two young adults, one of them a student, in an incident involving a handgun in the parking lot of Long Reach High School in Columbia. Rashad Rudder-Watkins, 18, of Beechfield Avenue in Elkridge, and Katherine Mejia, 20, of Echols Avenue in Glenarden, were both charged with multiple firearms violations, including possession of a gun on school property.
Police received a 911 call at 9:25 a.m. from Mejia who reported that Rudder-Watkins was refusing to get out of her car and that he had a gun. An HCPD patrol officer happened to be inside the school on an unrelated runaway call and responded to the parking lot immediately. Currently, there are no school resource officers (SROs) in the schools under a resolution passed by the Howard County Board of Education.
The patrol officer exited the school and approached Mejia’s car. He and additional responding officers located an illegal loaded firearm in the glovebox known as a “ghost gun,” which is an untraceable weapon with no serial number, put together from separate components that can be purchased on the Internet.
Both Rudder-Watkins and Mejia were placed under arrest and taken to the Howard County booking center for processing. No one was injured in the incident.
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