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BOURBON - Charges were filed against a Triton Jr.-Sr. High School junior and a recommendation will be made that he be expelled for allegedly bringing a gun to school last week.
David Kovach of Bourbon was charged with a Class C felony of unlicensed possession of a handgun within 1,000 feet of a school and a Class A misdemeanor offense of dangerous possession of a handgun. The felony weapons charge carries an automatic waiver to adult court if the offender is over age 16, according to Kurt Palmer of the Marshall County Prosecutor's Office.
Kovach is being held in the Marshall County Jail in lieu of a $10,000 surety bond or a $2,000 cash bond. He appeared in Marshall Circuit Court for an initial hearing on Friday. A plea of not guilty was entered on his behalf and a public defender was appointed to his case. His next court date is set for June 4.
According to Rex Roth, superintendent of Triton School Corp., Kovach had a .22-caliber handgun in his backpack on his bicycle at track practice on May 17, but it was never apparently brought into the school building.
Roth said Kovach made the comment that he just had the gun to scare people. The weapon was loaded when Bourbon police confiscated it from Kovach's home, but Roth said it is not known whether it was loaded when Kovach allegedly had the gun on school grounds.
School officials learned of the allegation through an anonymous tip from a student on Tuesday and an investigation that included Kovach's mother ended up at the school when the weapon was not found in its usual place in a cabinet at Kovach's residence.
"There's not a positive in these kinds of matters," Roth said, "but we feel good that a student did report something."
If the recommended expulsion is approved, Kovach would not be allowed to return to Triton for his final year of high school. Roth said school board policy calls for a one-year expulsion for a weapons violation.
