Teen with BB gun faces charges

A report of a gun at Walter B. Jones Park led to the arrest of a 14-year-old New Jersey boy with an air pistol, according to Havelock police.

The boy was taken into custody at about 7 p.m. Saturday after someone saw him sitting at a picnic table holding what appeared to be a gun and called police, Police Chief G. Wayne Cyrus said Tuesday.

"As police approached him, he was observed by an individual walking over to place the weapon under the wooden helicopter in the park," Cyrus said.

Police retrieved the gun, and it turned out to be a type of BB air pistol that looks similar to a real gun. It was not loaded, Cyrus said.

The teen faces a juvenile petition with a charge of carrying a concealed weapon.

His name was not released because he is a juvenile, which North Carolina defines as a person younger than 16.

Those charged with a petition in juvenile court face an adjudication hearing where charges are found to be true or untrue. If charges are proven, juveniles receive a dispositional hearing and can be sentenced to protective supervision, probation or assignment to a youth development center, according to the N.C. Department of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.

Cyrus said the teen would go through the juvenile system in North Carolina, not New Jersey.