Teacher takes plea after gun discharges at school

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Associated Press

Teacher takes plea after gun discharges at school

| November 5, 2014 | Updated: November 5, 2014 2:14pm

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — A Utah schoolteacher whose gun accidentally went off in an elementary school bathroom agreed Wednesday to pay a fine and take a firearm-safety class as part of a plea deal.

Michelle Montgomery has already paid $200 to replace a toilet that exploded when her 9 mm handgun discharged in the faculty bathroom on Sept. 11. She pleaded no contest Wednesday to a misdemeanor charge of illegal discharge of a gun. It will be dismissed if she pays a $705 court fee and commits no new crimes over the next year.

Defense attorney Douglas Hoyt declined to comment during a court appearance Wednesday.

Police say the 39-year-old teacher's gun went off after she put it on top of a toilet-paper dispenser, though she initially told police it went off after it fell out of her holster, the Salt Lake Tribune reported (http://bit.ly/10w85km). She suffered minor injuries when fragments from the toilet or a bullet struck her in the leg, police said.

Montgomery, a sixth-grade teacher, resigned after the incident. She had been at Westbrook Elementary School for 14 years in Taylorsville, a suburb of Salt Lake City.


Read more: http://www.chron.com/news/crime/article/Teacher-takes-plea-after-gun-discharges-at-school-5873313.php

[Bjorn Against]

1. Yet the idiots in the NRA will still insist we need more teachers carrying guns in school

[scarystuffyo]

2. I don't understand this

I didn't know it was legal to carry a gun in a public school unless you were in the police

If that's the case how do parents in Utah feel when they know
the teachers are carrying guns in elementary school?

I would not be able to send my child to a public school there

[ManiacJoe]

4. The guns in schools is governed by the laws of the individual states.

Most don't allow it, but a few do.

[SylviaD]

3. Repeal the amendment. The only way to stop this insanity. n/t

[They_Live]

5. There's a lot of problems with this story.

First off, a teacher with a gun in an elementary school. The teacher changing her story (lying... to the police). Why was the gun out and not holstered. And I'm pretty sure the trigger is pulled for the gun to "go off".

[MisterP]

6. it's a bit like with slavery: abolitionism became much more widespread

once Northerners realized that the Slave Power had no intention of stopping at having just dark-skinned slaves:

The Richmond Enquirer praised the Sumner beating since the abolitionists "have been suffered to run too long without collars. They must be lashed into submission."

William Cullen Bryant noted, "Has it come to this, that we must speak with bated breath in the presence of our Southern masters?... Are we to be chastised as they chastise their slaves? Are we too, slaves, slaves for life, a target for their brutal blows, when we do not comport ourselves to please them?"

[Sunlei]

7. she will not make that mistake again. To resign is to much. training and no gun carry is enough.

When a school choses to have teachers carry weapons stupid accidents could happen. The school needs to provide training, extra pay for the teacher and carry good insurance. The local community has to vote to approve the extra costs to their property school taxes.

[valerief]

8. I have a better idea. How about she's not allowed to take the gun to school? nt

[1Greensix]

9. Those violent Mormons

The teacher Must have been terrified by all those violent Mormon children in Utah. Why else would she need a gun??