By JOHN DOYLE and IRENE PLAGIANOS
Posted: 5:00 am
June 28, 2008
A police checkpoint set up to stop a water-balloon fight on the last day of class at a Staten Island school wound up uncovering something a lot more dangerous than a little splash - a 14-year-old boy with a loaded handgun and a score to settle, cops said.
Seventh-grader Darren Rivera was caught with the 9 mm pistol inside IS 49 on Warren Street at 10:30 a.m. on Thursday after he got nervous at the checkpoint and bolted from school security, police said.
Rivera planned to use the handgun to get revenge on a classmate, whom he threatened to kill after a fight last week, police sources said.
Rivera has a history of disciplinary problems with other students, a law-enforcement source said.
"This could have been something very tragic on the last day of school," said a source close to the investigation.
Rivera's sister, Angelica, 17, said, "He doesn't learn . . . He's been misbehaving for a while.
"He's acting up in school, running around, fighting."
School security had set up a checkpoint for students to prevent a large-scale water-balloon fight, which, according to rumors at the school, was slated for the final day.
After Rivera raced through the blockade at 10 a.m., school safety officers and uniformed cops scoured the building for about a half-hour before finding him in a hallway.
Cops found the 9 mm gun in his left pocket and a 9 mm clip loaded with seven bullets in his right one, according to court papers. He allegedly claimed to have found the gun and the clip in the street that morning.
Cops were trying to determine the origin of the gun.
"Thankfully, this was discovered very quickly and ended with no one being hurt," said a law-enforcement source.
Rivera, who lives nearby, was arraigned yesterday and ordered held on $50,000 bail. He was charged as an adult with a single count of weapons possession.
If convicted, he faces up to seven years in prison, said a spokesman for Staten Island District Attorney Daniel Donovan.
Rivera's sister said his mother suffers from an illness and is in the hospital.
Students at the school knew him as a thug.
"He's a bad kid," one teen said. "He threatens kids, and he don't really go to class. It don't surprise me he had a gun, because I know he's bad."
