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‘What I did was stupid’: Teen accepts blame for bringing loaded gun to school, gets 4-month jail term

April 24, 2018 at 8:11 p.m. EDT

An 18-year-old honor student in Maryland was sentenced to four months in jail Tuesday after pleading guilty to carrying a loaded, concealed gun in school in what his lawyers said was a misguided attempt to guard against possible mass shooters.

“Your honor, what I did was stupid,” Alwin Chen told Montgomery County Circuit Judge John Maloney in his first public comments since his case drew national attention a day after a mass shooting at a Florida high school.

Chen apologized to his school, Clarksburg High, and the community from which it draws.

He spoke of a huge burden he’d placed on his parents, who sat in the front row in court. He asked for a chance to have a productive life. “I don’t want to be back here ever again,” he said.

Maloney assured him no one else did, either, touching off a lengthy exchange in which the judge said he was struggling to balance Chen’s potentially bright future with a desire to send a strong message that guns cannot be brought to schools. Maloney noted that Chen was caught with his gun Feb. 15, the day after 17 people were killed by a shooter at a school in Parkland, Fla.

“It concerns anybody in the times that we are in,” Maloney said.

“Yes, your honor,” Chen said repeatedly.

In Chen’s favor, the hearing showed, was his school performance on the honor roll, lettering as a cross-country athlete, Junior ROTC service for three years, and recently received college scholarship offers.

By the end of the hearing, though, it was findings by investigators that Chen had borne no ill intent that appeared to shape his sentence on the misdemeanor charge of carrying a handgun on school grounds.

Maloney gave Chen 70 days of jail “credit” — the length of time he has been incarcerated since his arrest at the school.

“With your credit, you’re going to be getting out very soon — in the month of May. I wouldn’t be surprised by Mother’s Day. All right?” the judge said.

“Thank you, your honor,” Chen replied.

On Feb. 15, a school resources officer at Clarksburg got a tip that Chen had a gun, and with a school security staffer escorted Chen from his AP psychology class to an office and asked him whether there was anything in his book bag.

“A loaded Glock,’’ Chen said. The gun was one he had made from parts ordered online and tools bought at a Home Depot.

He told police in an interview about the guns at the Germantown townhouse where he lived with his family. The weapons, which he said were owned by his father, included revolvers, a pump shotgun and AR-15 assault-style rifle.

Chen also told police he regularly carried the homemade handgun to school — in his book bag or in a belt holster, hidden by an untucked shirt. “He described it as a regular occurrence that he brought that weapon to school,” Assistant State’s Attorney Frank Lazzaro said in court Tuesday.

Chen added, while talking to police, that he had considered applying for a “conceal/carry” permit, but realized he could not get one because he was not 21.

He said that “running and hiding, in the event of an active shooter, was not a logical decision,” according to his attorneys, David Felsen and Jill Michaels.

The attorneys had submitted supportive letters from Chen’s friends and others who knew him. Several suggested that he had developed a naive desire to be a “superhero,” which may have outweighed his better judgment.

Maloney picked up on the “hero” aspect.

“You’ve got to end this hero issue and maybe address some of these things you need to address in therapy [to] see why you thought you needed to bring a gun,” Maloney said.

The judge told Chen that in several years — if Chen’s attorneys submit paperwork showing Chen getting A’s in college and otherwise doing well — he “may very well” expunge the case from Chen’s record.

“If you stay out of trouble,” the judge said, “the world is your oyster.”

“Alwin saw himself as a competent protector against perceived threats,” the attorneys wrote in court filings, adding that his “conduct was a product of altruistic intentions and remarkably poor teenage judgment.”

Earlier in the case, detectives read a journal kept by Chen, and the writings raised concerns. “I might start doing some vigilante operations,” Chen wrote on May 1, 2017, according to court papers. “I don’t plan on killing people, but I’m surely going to hit evil people.”

The writings, and Chen’s admission that he had brought the gun to school regularly, concerned District Judge John Moffett, who in February ordered Chen jailed pending further court proceedings — which left Chen jailed preceding his plea.

This week in court filings, his attorneys countered the contention that the journal entries were worrisome: “This is a high-school teen who is navigating normal social issues like dating, break-ups, grades, getting into a good college, popularity and friendships,” they wrote.

On Tuesday, the judge expressed a similar view as he cited a psychological report on Chen that had been submitted to court.

“It gives me peace — the lack of ill will in your heart and your intent, however misguided this was,” Maloney said.

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