BCC on lockdown

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They released the name of the kid who had the gun. Anyone know the backstory for this kis who is not white as mentioned earlier in the thread.


https://mocoshow.com/2025/02/20/juvenile-arrested-suspect-sought-in-bethesda-park-shooting/

How do you know the kid is not white? He appears to be Hispanic, but Hispanic is not a race.

He could be a white Hispanic or of mixed race (mestizo) white and indigenous heritage, which is common for many Hispanic Americans.

Believe as you like.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can anyone confirm that either of the two teens (alright one is 19 and from Bethesda) arrested attends B-CC?

I am interested in this question. Were they all BCC, or a mix with another MCPS school?

We only have confirmation that B-CC students were involved, but no confirmation if students from other MCPS schools were involved.

I've never understood why MCPS is averse to confirming if students are involved in these incidents or not.

This was not on school property. This is a police matter.

MCPS admin is never going to change.

No one is disputing whether the incident happened off of school grounds.

But the people involved are MCPS students who left an MCPS building when they weren’t supposed to and they might have had the guns they used on them while they were in the school building. Furthermore, some of the students involved in the fight may have slipped back into the school building after the fact since there was a significant gap in time between when the incident took place and when the lockdown was called. Those are all MCPS issues. MCPS cannot wash its hands of this matter.

They will change if they are forced to change. That's why people are discussing lawsuits

[Anonymous]

BBC needs to expel every student who was involved in that fight. the principal has already said they know the BCC kids involved
https://docs.google.com/document/d/19ehsVbhgwYE8G_CjNcsz-fQHBeGbxMtDxg76fm-8tU0/edit?tab=t.0

[Anonymous]

Sounds like a B-CC insider spilled the goods to Moderately MoCo. It was a good piece: https://moderatelymoco.com/dont-ban-cell-phones-until-you-mcps-and-boe-can-keep-kids-safe-and-out-of-lockdown/

From video and photos, teachers and students quickly recognized many of the students involved in the Wednesday 10:10 AM group fight near B-CC’s campus, where gunshots were fired and two shell casings were found, no doubt leading to the quick arrest. It also forced B-CC’s administration to admit that its students were involved. And the images, apparently, based on the two separate firearm charges, helped investigators determine that there was not one, but two guns, involved in the incident, as had been widely speculated in the larger B-CC school community.

How did this happen?

B-CC school has many doors and essentially has an open-door policy – there’s nothing keeping kids on campus, and they often come and go as they please. School leadership knows the trouble spots – the main office has taken calls for years about students smoking weed and dealing drugs in that part of Bethesda, but MCPS’s official view and policy is that anything that happens one millimeter off its property is not its problem. Students plan their fights, etc. accordingly. They know there are basically no consequences (ask Whitman families what happened after the bathroom fight). This is, after all, a system where last school year, underaged B-CC students who participated in armed carjackings during school hours were back in class the next day, openly bragging to teachers and students about their exploits. Students are also aware of which of their peers have access to guns or even carry them to school. It’s an open secret that too many MCPS school administrators apparently don’t seem to be interested in.

All of this is part of the failure to create any safety culture at MCPS

But instead of working for safe schools, MCPS and individual principals threaten students who film incidents with consequences as severe as the perpetrators – and spend far more time publicly scolding the students who capture these incidents on their phones. Consider this: Based on their actions to date, if MCPS ran MCPD, there would never be a single police body camera anywhere in the force.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sounds like a B-CC insider spilled the goods to Moderately MoCo. It was a good piece: https://moderatelymoco.com/dont-ban-cell-phones-until-you-mcps-and-boe-can-keep-kids-safe-and-out-of-lockdown/

From video and photos, teachers and students quickly recognized many of the students involved in the Wednesday 10:10 AM group fight near B-CC’s campus, where gunshots were fired and two shell casings were found, no doubt leading to the quick arrest. It also forced B-CC’s administration to admit that its students were involved. And the images, apparently, based on the two separate firearm charges, helped investigators determine that there was not one, but two guns, involved in the incident, as had been widely speculated in the larger B-CC school community.

How did this happen?

B-CC school has many doors and essentially has an open-door policy – there’s nothing keeping kids on campus, and they often come and go as they please. School leadership knows the trouble spots – the main office has taken calls for years about students smoking weed and dealing drugs in that part of Bethesda, but MCPS’s official view and policy is that anything that happens one millimeter off its property is not its problem. Students plan their fights, etc. accordingly. They know there are basically no consequences (ask Whitman families what happened after the bathroom fight). This is, after all, a system where last school year, underaged B-CC students who participated in armed carjackings during school hours were back in class the next day, openly bragging to teachers and students about their exploits. Students are also aware of which of their peers have access to guns or even carry them to school. It’s an open secret that too many MCPS school administrators apparently don’t seem to be interested in.

All of this is part of the failure to create any safety culture at MCPS

But instead of working for safe schools, MCPS and individual principals threaten students who film incidents with consequences as severe as the perpetrators – and spend far more time publicly scolding the students who capture these incidents on their phones. Consider this: Based on their actions to date, if MCPS ran MCPD, there would never be a single police body camera anywhere in the force.

There's nothing about this piece that requires one to be a B-CC insider "spilling the goods." This is just someone making broad unsubstantiated statements, like the one about students involved in the carjacking last year being back in school the next day bragging about it. There's no evidence that this is the case. I agree that the videos of these fights have proven important in identifying those involved and students who film acts of violence shouldn't receive the same punishment as those who commit those acts - and I don't think they do receive the same punishment. But let's not act like the students recording these fights are social justice activists trying to hold people in power accountable, as is the case for those who record acts of police violence (and at least part of the purpose of body cams). The students recording these fights are typically involved in the planning of the fight and are there to record if for social media glory.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can anyone confirm that either of the two teens (alright one is 19 and from Bethesda) arrested attends B-CC?

I am interested in this question. Were they all BCC, or a mix with another MCPS school?

Given that they had backpacks, the timing of the day, and proximity to BCC, I have to believe they all went to BCC. It has already been confirmed that the 19 year old is a BCC student.

Please stop. Many HS are close enough to a metro, bus and students have various modes of transportation to get around. What if it was a WJ student who showed up. Or how about a middle schooler (gasp!)???

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Seriously; we don't hear about violence like happening at Whitman, WJ or Churchill. Why is this? Is it because BCC is more urban and accessible by metro/bus etc? I thought BCC was just as good a school as the other three mentioned above.

I had one kid at WJ and one at BCC. BCC draws a certain portion of its student population from lower-income areas, more than any of the W schools. It also has more economic and social diversity than the other Bethesda/Potomac schools. Also, it's more urban, which makes it a frequent center of violence during games, because kids can easily come and go from the metro station.

But regarding violent behavior of certain kids at BCC... it's a little more complicated. Last year one violent kid was a transplant from another area of MCPS, who had been passed around from school to school because he kept getting into trouble. It was BCC's turn. Nothing to do with our own population of kids. Some other bad behaviors do come from BCC-area kids, and I'm sorry to say, they're mostly from the lower-income end of the range. With all that this implies: unstable home situations, undiagnosed mental health needs, possible affiliation with gangs, etc. Education is just not a priority for them.

Oblivious, I guess, Bethesda parent here. All I see is wealthy, upper middle class families in this town. Where are lower-income kids with gang affiliations living??

Rosemary Hills. All those post-war split levels are teeming with members of the GS-15 gang.

Stop it. There are plenty of great families in Rosemary Hills.

Pretty sure PP is making a joke similar to this article: https://takomatorch.com/index.php/2025/01/30/trump-vows-to-eliminate-gs-13-gangs-controlling-dc-region/

[And yes, Takoma Torch is basically TKPK’s version of the Onion.]

As a partial answer to the PP's question ... in the incident last year where some BCC students jumped some WJ students after a game, the BCC student involved that was over 18 (and thus had his name publicly disclosed) lived in an apartment building up Wisconsin or CT Avenue with a single mother who drove a bus for either MWATA or Rideon.

This is sort of an aside, but I went to two different middle schools. One had a grab-bag catch area with a random mix of kids from different socioeconomic backgrounds, and things went pretty well there. The other was a bused school that combined Latino kids from a very poor neighborhood with kids from a very UMC white neighborhood and it was a disaster -- the two groups did not mix, there were a lot of problems, and the kids from the poor neighborhood generally did not take classes with the kids from the UMC neighborhood. The kids from the poor neighborhood would have been better served in a more mixed community where it would have been more possible to mix more with kids that had more social supports. There are other MCPS High Schools that I think do this more effectively, with mixing kids from different backgrounds.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sounds like a B-CC insider spilled the goods to Moderately MoCo. It was a good piece: https://moderatelymoco.com/dont-ban-cell-phones-until-you-mcps-and-boe-can-keep-kids-safe-and-out-of-lockdown/

From video and photos, teachers and students quickly recognized many of the students involved in the Wednesday 10:10 AM group fight near B-CC’s campus, where gunshots were fired and two shell casings were found, no doubt leading to the quick arrest. It also forced B-CC’s administration to admit that its students were involved. And the images, apparently, based on the two separate firearm charges, helped investigators determine that there was not one, but two guns, involved in the incident, as had been widely speculated in the larger B-CC school community.

How did this happen?

B-CC school has many doors and essentially has an open-door policy – there’s nothing keeping kids on campus, and they often come and go as they please. School leadership knows the trouble spots – the main office has taken calls for years about students smoking weed and dealing drugs in that part of Bethesda, but MCPS’s official view and policy is that anything that happens one millimeter off its property is not its problem. Students plan their fights, etc. accordingly. They know there are basically no consequences (ask Whitman families what happened after the bathroom fight). This is, after all, a system where last school year, underaged B-CC students who participated in armed carjackings during school hours were back in class the next day, openly bragging to teachers and students about their exploits. Students are also aware of which of their peers have access to guns or even carry them to school. It’s an open secret that too many MCPS school administrators apparently don’t seem to be interested in.

All of this is part of the failure to create any safety culture at MCPS

But instead of working for safe schools, MCPS and individual principals threaten students who film incidents with consequences as severe as the perpetrators – and spend far more time publicly scolding the students who capture these incidents on their phones. Consider this: Based on their actions to date, if MCPS ran MCPD, there would never be a single police body camera anywhere in the force.

There's nothing about this piece that requires one to be a B-CC insider "spilling the goods." This is just someone making broad unsubstantiated statements, like the one about students involved in the carjacking last year being back in school the next day bragging about it. There's no evidence that this is the case. I agree that the videos of these fights have proven important in identifying those involved and students who film acts of violence shouldn't receive the same punishment as those who commit those acts - and I don't think they do receive the same punishment. But let's not act like the students recording these fights are social justice activists trying to hold people in power accountable, as is the case for those who record acts of police violence (and at least part of the purpose of body cams). The students recording these fights are typically involved in the planning of the fight and are there to record if for social media glory.

I feel like the MCPS communications fail to make this distinction. The communication always say that kids who record will be punished. They should say that kids who record and post to SM will be punished, but that kids who record and bring the recording to MCPS administration or MCPD will not be punished.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sounds like a B-CC insider spilled the goods to Moderately MoCo. It was a good piece: https://moderatelymoco.com/dont-ban-cell-phones-until-you-mcps-and-boe-can-keep-kids-safe-and-out-of-lockdown/

From video and photos, teachers and students quickly recognized many of the students involved in the Wednesday 10:10 AM group fight near B-CC’s campus, where gunshots were fired and two shell casings were found, no doubt leading to the quick arrest. It also forced B-CC’s administration to admit that its students were involved. And the images, apparently, based on the two separate firearm charges, helped investigators determine that there was not one, but two guns, involved in the incident, as had been widely speculated in the larger B-CC school community.

How did this happen?

B-CC school has many doors and essentially has an open-door policy – there’s nothing keeping kids on campus, and they often come and go as they please. School leadership knows the trouble spots – the main office has taken calls for years about students smoking weed and dealing drugs in that part of Bethesda, but MCPS’s official view and policy is that anything that happens one millimeter off its property is not its problem. Students plan their fights, etc. accordingly. They know there are basically no consequences (ask Whitman families what happened after the bathroom fight). This is, after all, a system where last school year, underaged B-CC students who participated in armed carjackings during school hours were back in class the next day, openly bragging to teachers and students about their exploits. Students are also aware of which of their peers have access to guns or even carry them to school. It’s an open secret that too many MCPS school administrators apparently don’t seem to be interested in.

All of this is part of the failure to create any safety culture at MCPS

But instead of working for safe schools, MCPS and individual principals threaten students who film incidents with consequences as severe as the perpetrators – and spend far more time publicly scolding the students who capture these incidents on their phones. Consider this: Based on their actions to date, if MCPS ran MCPD, there would never be a single police body camera anywhere in the force.

Wow. That perfectly summarizes the situation. Add in the PTSA “check your privilege” issue, and that’ the fact that only 66 percent of the school meets basic math proficiency standards. 16 percent can barely read.

My kids are graduated, but I would never send a child there now. Two guns. Unreal.

[Anonymous]

Why are there no metal detectors in the school. What are they waiting for. It is standard in most cities in the US to have them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Seriously; we don't hear about violence like happening at Whitman, WJ or Churchill. Why is this? Is it because BCC is more urban and accessible by metro/bus etc? I thought BCC was just as good a school as the other three mentioned above.

I had one kid at WJ and one at BCC. BCC draws a certain portion of its student population from lower-income areas, more than any of the W schools. It also has more economic and social diversity than the other Bethesda/Potomac schools. Also, it's more urban, which makes it a frequent center of violence during games, because kids can easily come and go from the metro station.

But regarding violent behavior of certain kids at BCC... it's a little more complicated. Last year one violent kid was a transplant from another area of MCPS, who had been passed around from school to school because he kept getting into trouble. It was BCC's turn. Nothing to do with our own population of kids. Some other bad behaviors do come from BCC-area kids, and I'm sorry to say, they're mostly from the lower-income end of the range. With all that this implies: unstable home situations, undiagnosed mental health needs, possible affiliation with gangs, etc. Education is just not a priority for them.

Oblivious, I guess, Bethesda parent here. All I see is wealthy, upper middle class families in this town. Where are lower-income kids with gang affiliations living??

Rosemary Hills. All those post-war split levels are teeming with members of the GS-15 gang.

Stop it. There are plenty of great families in Rosemary Hills.

Pretty sure PP is making a joke similar to this article: https://takomatorch.com/index.php/2025/01/30/trump-vows-to-eliminate-gs-13-gangs-controlling-dc-region/

[And yes, Takoma Torch is basically TKPK’s version of the Onion.]

As a partial answer to the PP's question ... in the incident last year where some BCC students jumped some WJ students after a game, the BCC student involved that was over 18 (and thus had his name publicly disclosed) lived in an apartment building up Wisconsin or CT Avenue with a single mother who drove a bus for either MWATA or Rideon.

This is sort of an aside, but I went to two different middle schools. One had a grab-bag catch area with a random mix of kids from different socioeconomic backgrounds, and things went pretty well there. The other was a bused school that combined Latino kids from a very poor neighborhood with kids from a very UMC white neighborhood and it was a disaster -- the two groups did not mix, there were a lot of problems, and the kids from the poor neighborhood generally did not take classes with the kids from the UMC neighborhood. The kids from the poor neighborhood would have been better served in a more mixed community where it would have been more possible to mix more with kids that had more social supports. There are other MCPS High Schools that I think do this more effectively, with mixing kids from different backgrounds.

Thank you for that insight. I agree with you that there are frictions due to very different populations at BCC.
I have a kid at BCC and another at a different MCPS high school, where the population is more homogeneous, and the other high school doesn't have half the violence issues that BCC has.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The listserv moderator is controlling, claiming she is limiting the clutter. When in fact all she is add clutter by passing along the administration’s emails. In the past, parents could discuss such incidents freely without this extreme censorship. Another list serv is necessary for this school.

I agree that passing along every message from the school was annoying. I can’t imagine that there are many parents who don’t get the Remind messages but are on the PTSA listserv. I do appreciate that they are strict about what gets approved during these incidents, though, because there are always a lot of rumors that end up not being true and don’t help an already tense situation.

I agreed with her position not to pass along messages in that period. It’s mostly rumor and unhelpful.

Frankly, it’s a volunteer position. If she said she was only going to pass along whatever messages she could get through from 8pm-9pm, it would be ok. Maybe better.

I'm a BCC parent who has been on the list serv for at least 8 years (multiple kids.) I'm hugely supportive of the current modertor's approach; there are too many random messages as it is, and no one needs a flood of baseless speculation during a crisis. Personally I would apply a quota - there are two or three parents who agitate over every single thing that happens. And the people who feel the need to send every single music booster activity or sports annoucement, enough already.

Let's be honest here. The music activities posts are dwarved by a certain person posting in all caps about sports He doesn't even have kids at the school anymore, they're all adults. He's been an annoying fixture in local schools for years, I've had the misfortune to note. Please dude, retire already!!!

Now we're getting into his annual mulch mania. Sigh.

I love that guy! I do have a kid that plays a sport but under any circumstances I love how affirming he is of all sports. He wants to highlight success irrespective of whether you are in trendy sport or a less actively followed sport. I love to see examples of students doing great at extra curriculars and getting some public acknowledgement for their hard work. I love how the boosters invest in all sports. I think he is miles better than boosters from other schools who only prioritize football and boys basketball.

No, he sucks all the air out of the room. Please consider that there are activities other than sports! You seem to think that extra-curriculars are only comprised of athletics.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The listserv moderator is controlling, claiming she is limiting the clutter. When in fact all she is add clutter by passing along the administration’s emails. In the past, parents could discuss such incidents freely without this extreme censorship. Another list serv is necessary for this school.

I agree that passing along every message from the school was annoying. I can’t imagine that there are many parents who don’t get the Remind messages but are on the PTSA listserv. I do appreciate that they are strict about what gets approved during these incidents, though, because there are always a lot of rumors that end up not being true and don’t help an already tense situation.

I agreed with her position not to pass along messages in that period. It’s mostly rumor and unhelpful.

Frankly, it’s a volunteer position. If she said she was only going to pass along whatever messages she could get through from 8pm-9pm, it would be ok. Maybe better.

I'm a BCC parent who has been on the list serv for at least 8 years (multiple kids.) I'm hugely supportive of the current modertor's approach; there are too many random messages as it is, and no one needs a flood of baseless speculation during a crisis. Personally I would apply a quota - there are two or three parents who agitate over every single thing that happens. And the people who feel the need to send every single music booster activity or sports annoucement, enough already.

Let's be honest here. The music activities posts are dwarved by a certain person posting in all caps about sports He doesn't even have kids at the school anymore, they're all adults. He's been an annoying fixture in local schools for years, I've had the misfortune to note. Please dude, retire already!!!

Now we're getting into his annual mulch mania. Sigh.

I love that guy! I do have a kid that plays a sport but under any circumstances I love how affirming he is of all sports. He wants to highlight success irrespective of whether you are in trendy sport or a less actively followed sport. I love to see examples of students doing great at extra curriculars and getting some public acknowledgement for their hard work. I love how the boosters invest in all sports. I think he is miles better than boosters from other schools who only prioritize football and boys basketball.

No, he sucks all the air out of the room. Please consider that there are activities other than sports! You seem to think that extra-curriculars are only comprised of athletics.

Maybe other extra-curriculars just need a similar champion sharing their wins on the listserve. He’s not standing in the way of that. I love to hear when the choir wins awards, or the robotics team gets invited to nationals, and similar. We just need more people to share good news not less.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The listserv moderator is controlling, claiming she is limiting the clutter. When in fact all she is add clutter by passing along the administration’s emails. In the past, parents could discuss such incidents freely without this extreme censorship. Another list serv is necessary for this school.

I agree that passing along every message from the school was annoying. I can’t imagine that there are many parents who don’t get the Remind messages but are on the PTSA listserv. I do appreciate that they are strict about what gets approved during these incidents, though, because there are always a lot of rumors that end up not being true and don’t help an already tense situation.

I agreed with her position not to pass along messages in that period. It’s mostly rumor and unhelpful.

Frankly, it’s a volunteer position. If she said she was only going to pass along whatever messages she could get through from 8pm-9pm, it would be ok. Maybe better.

I'm a BCC parent who has been on the list serv for at least 8 years (multiple kids.) I'm hugely supportive of the current modertor's approach; there are too many random messages as it is, and no one needs a flood of baseless speculation during a crisis. Personally I would apply a quota - there are two or three parents who agitate over every single thing that happens. And the people who feel the need to send every single music booster activity or sports annoucement, enough already.

Let's be honest here. The music activities posts are dwarved by a certain person posting in all caps about sports He doesn't even have kids at the school anymore, they're all adults. He's been an annoying fixture in local schools for years, I've had the misfortune to note. Please dude, retire already!!!

Now we're getting into his annual mulch mania. Sigh.

I love that guy! I do have a kid that plays a sport but under any circumstances I love how affirming he is of all sports. He wants to highlight success irrespective of whether you are in trendy sport or a less actively followed sport. I love to see examples of students doing great at extra curriculars and getting some public acknowledgement for their hard work. I love how the boosters invest in all sports. I think he is miles better than boosters from other schools who only prioritize football and boys basketball.

No, he sucks all the air out of the room. Please consider that there are activities other than sports! You seem to think that extra-curriculars are only comprised of athletics.

m

I don’t understand this level of hate. I think you shouldn’t follow it if so easily triggered. The list serv posts about all activities. Just so you know, the booster pres does not write all of his posts. Many are written by individuals connected to the sport and shared by him. I love any and all positive energy at B-CC regardless of the extracurricular activity. It is certainly much better than hearing about a gun fight with BCC students.

[Anonymous]

Update on the case: https://www.fox5dc.com/news/no-bond-bethesda-chevy-chase-hs-student-accused-firing-shots-during-fight-near-school

It sounds like the shootout was over a girl as some posters indicated. How pathetic.