BIDWELL — An incident involving a River Valley High School (RVHS) student in possession of prohibited items on school property resulted in the brief lockdown of two schools and the removal of the student from campus Wednesday.

Gallia County Sheriff’s Deputies responded to a request from RVHS officials Wednesday morning to begin an investigation into allegations of a student on school property with a realistic-looking hand gun that, in fact, was discovered to be a single pellet gun. Possession of this type of device on restricted grounds is in violation of Ohio law, as well as, the school district’s policy.

According to Ohio Revised Code, Section 2923.12 (c):

No person shall knowingly possess an object in a school safety zone if both of the following apply:

(1) The object is indistinguishable from a firearm, whether or not the object is capable of being fired.

(2) The person indicates that the person possesses the object and that it is a firearm, or the person knowingly displays or brandishes the object and indicates that it is a firearm.

Upon the deputies’ arrival, the scene was already contained by school district personnel. The 15-year-old male student in question was removed from the school property and detained by deputies. A complete investigation into this situation will be forwarded to the county prosecutor for review.

Gallia County Local School District officials told the Gallipolis Daily Tribune that no students were threatened, harmed or were at any time in harm’s way as a result of the incident and that River Valley Middle School (RVMS) was only locked down because of the close proximity to the high school as part of the district’s safety policy. Both schools were back to normal class activity by noon.