A 72-year-old janitor at Kingsley Elementary School could face up to five years in prison on felony charges after police learned last week he owns the handgun found at the school Jan. 4.
Charles Scott, the head daytime janitor at the Evanston school, told police he owned the gun after he was arrested Thursday night, said Chief Frank Kaminski of Evanston Police Department.
The arrest came after the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives traced the gun to Scott.
Police are still investigating how the loaded weapon ended up in a grocery bag on the floor of a school bathroom, where it was found and turned in by a 7-year-old student.
“We’re very confident this is his gun that he had and he bought illegally,” Kaminski said at a press conference Friday afternoon.
Scott — an Evanston resident who has worked for Evanston/Skokie School District 65 for 29 years — has a previous assault charge that occurred off school grounds in November, Kaminski said. Scott has owned the gun for about a year-and-a-half.
He told police he carried the weapon for personal protection.
Scott is the second custodian in the school district to face felony charges in the last three months. In October a janitor at Lincolnwood Elementary School, 2600 Colfax St., was charged with selling crack and powder cocaine on school property.
District 65 performs electronic background checks on all employees, but did not begin that system until February 2000, so existing employees were not screened, Superintendent Hardy Ray Murphy said Friday. The district will discuss the best way to change this policy, he added.
Scott also was suspended in 1996 for a dispute with another employee in the cafeteria of Kingsley, 2300 Green Bay Road, Murphy said.
Kingsley parent Nick Miles said he and his wife are glad police found the gun’s owner, but have “mixed feelings” about the arrest.
“It’s kind of scary that somebody who works at the school every day has been carrying a gun,” Miles said. “But at the same time, why does a 72-year-old man feel like he has to carry a gun?”
Miles described Scott as a “really nice guy” who has helped his wife find their fifth-grader’s lost boots or lost backpack.
Scott’s family members declined to comment on the case Sunday night.
Murphy said the district wasn’t aware of the November incident, and he called for a statewide system that would require police to notify schools of criminal charges against district employees.
But Kaminski said this would be difficult because EPD arrests “thousands of people a year.”
Kaminski praised his officers and federal officials Friday for their quick action in finding Scott.
Scott is charged with unlawful use of a weapon for having a handgun on school grounds, a felony punishable with up to five years in prison. He is also charged with not having a firearm owner ID card and for possessing a handgun, which is illegal in Evanston. Scott is scheduled to appear Feb. 1 at Circuit Court in Skokie.
Reach Marissa Conrad at [email protected].
