After more than five hours barricaded inside Marcelino Blanco School, the student handed over the weapon with which she had fired
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An extremely tense situation concluded this Wednesday in Mendoza when a 14-year-old teenager who had barricaded herself inside Marcelino Blanco school, in the department of La Paz, finally surrendered to authorities after 3:00 p.m., bringing an end to an operation that lasted more than five hours.
The incident began around 9:30 a.m. when students were returning to their classrooms after the first recess. According to police sources, the minor entered the school with a firearm, fired three shots into the air, and then barricaded herself in the schoolyard, causing panic among students and teachers.
Witnesses reported that the teenager went to the bathroom before coming out with the loaded weapon and briefly pointed it at some classmates. The young woman is in her second year of high school, lives in La Paz, and her father is a police officer in San Luis, so it is suspected that the weapon, a 9-millimeter caliber pistol, could belong to him.
Faced with the situation, school authorities acted quickly, evacuating students as a precaution and transferring them to La Paz Hospital, where they were treated mainly for nervousness. Parents were called to pick them up.
La joven armada.
The juvenile criminal prosecutor of La Paz, Griselda Digier, along with specialists from the Incident and Kidnapping Resolution Group (GRIS), negotiated with the teenager for hours until she handed over the weapon without incident. Officials from the Ministry of Security and Justice and representatives from the General Directorate of Schools also intervened.
The Ministry of Security asked the community to respect the distance and security protocols: "Any external disturbance could have serious consequences. The precautionary principle requires us to take extreme care," they stated in an official statement.
After the outcome, a video was shared on social media showing the armed teenager inside the school. Gustavo Pinto, director of La Paz hospital, reported that the evacuated students were treated and picked up by their parents around noon. Classmates described the minor as a quiet student with few friends who in recent days had shown signs of distress and crying.
Education Minister Tadeo García Salazar emphasized that the student had good academic performance and that there were no prior alerts from the educational system. He confirmed that all available resources were deployed, including helicopters and special police units, to ensure a peaceful resolution of the incident.
