HOUSTON (AP) _ Harris County authorities are trying to find out how a 16-year-old was able to get a loaded handgun past officers at the juvenile detention center.
Guards at the Harris County Juvenile Detention Center discovered the handgun about two hours after the youth was booked for possession of marijuana around 6 a.m. Monday.
An official with the Harris County Juvenile Probation Department, Harvey Hetzel, says guards found a .25 caliber semiautomatic handgun under the teenager’s mattress. Hetzel says it
was a lapse that should never have happened.
He says normally juveniles are taken to a processing center where they are searched, photographed and fingerprinted before being taken to the downtown detention center. There, they are usually strip-searched before being placed in a holding cell.