By Michael Phillips | MDBayNews
Montgomery County police were called to Col. Zadok Magruder High School in Derwood shortly before 9 a.m. Thursday after school security reported two separate weapons incidents within minutes of each other. The building was back to normal operations around 10 a.m. By midday, the county’s long-running argument over police in schools was back too.
Here’s what happened, and why it landed in the middle of a county executive race where the two general election candidates have staked out very different records on the question.
What police say happened
According to Montgomery County police, officers responded to Magruder at about 8:47 a.m. after security staff began investigating a report that a student might have a gun. During that encounter, a 15-year-old boy allegedly assaulted a school administrator and a security officer. When staff got the situation under control and searched him, they found a BB gun, not a firearm.
While that was unfolding, security separately found a second student carrying a knife.
- The 15-year-old was charged with first-degree assault, second-degree assault, possession of a dangerous weapon on school property, and disruption of a school day. The Department of Juvenile Services authorized his detention.
- The second student, who police described as cooperative and who handed over the knife without incident, was not criminally charged. His discipline is being handled by Montgomery County Public Schools.
- The school was placed on “hold status,” meaning hallways were cleared while classes continued, then returned to normal operations around 10 a.m.
Police have said the two incidents were unrelated. No injuries were reported.
Thursday’s incident comes roughly four years after a student shot and wounded a classmate inside the same building in 2022. That shooter received an 18-year sentence in a youthful offender program.
A debate that didn’t start today
Thursday’s incident landed squarely inside an argument Montgomery County has been having since 2021, when the county pulled school resource officers out of MCPS buildings and replaced them with Community Engagement Officers who rotate through school clusters rather than staying on one campus full time.
Rockville City Councilmember Adam Van Grack was among the first local officials to respond publicly on Thursday. In a social media post following the incident, Van Grack thanked Magruder staff, the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office and county police for their response, and called again for the county to bring back a modernized version of the SRO program. He noted that Rockville has already assigned Community Engagement Officers to each of the city’s three high school clusters this school year, and argued the county should go further.
It wasn’t a new position for Van Grack. In May, he and Gaithersburg City Councilmember Yamil Hernández told 7News they were renewing their push for SROs after a string of violent incidents, including a shooting inside Thomas S. Wootton High School that left one student wounded and a separate shooting during a fight at James Hubert Blake High School. Van Grack has said any revived program should look different from the pre-2021 model, with specialized training and officers kept out of routine discipline. He put it this way: officers who build trust in schools mean students “will realize that our public safety officers are there for us.”
An MCPS survey cited in that reporting found roughly a third of families, staff and administrators support a larger police presence inside schools. County police officials have also acknowledged a separate, practical obstacle: staffing. The department does not currently have enough officers to place one in every school in the district every day.
“Five years ago, Magruder would have had an assigned police officer on site every school day.”
Brenda Diaz, a former MCPS teacher now running for the Board of Education’s at-large seat against Omar Lazo, has been making this case longer than most people in county politics. During an unsuccessful 2024 run for the board’s District 2 seat, she said “police officers should be stationed inside high schools and middle schools,” pointing to the relationships she said officers built with students and teachers back when SROs were still assigned to county schools. MDBayNews reported in February that Diaz renewed that call after the Wootton High School shooting; Thursday’s incident at Magruder puts the same argument back in front of voters two months before she and Lazo face off in the Nov. 3 general election.
Where the county executive candidates stand
“The SRO fight is no longer just a Rockville or school board issue. It’s now a live contrast in the race to succeed term-limited County Executive Marc Elrich.”
The SRO fight is no longer just a Rockville or school board issue. It’s now a live contrast in the race to succeed term-limited County Executive Marc Elrich.
Democratic nominee Will Jawando, the county’s current council vice president, has one of the longest track records in county government of pushing to scale back or eliminate the SRO program. As a councilmember in 2020, he proposed reassigning SRO positions and, with Councilmember Hans Riemer, introduced legislation to bar the police chief from running the program at all, arguing the money was better spent on counselors and mental health staff. He noted that Black students, roughly a fifth of MCPS enrollment, accounted for more than half of student arrests tied to the program over a four-year span. Jawando has said the goal wasn’t to abandon school safety but to change “the presence of the tool as a law enforcement officer.”
Jawando’s campaign platform for county executive lists public safety as a priority built around community-based alternatives, including mental health services and youth programs, but it does not address the SRO program specifically one way or another as of this writing.
Republican nominee Esther Wells has made restoring SRO funding in MCPS an explicit plank of her campaign, framing it as a way to provide crisis support and safety coverage during emergencies. It’s one of several public safety planks in her platform, alongside fully staffing the police department and improving officer wellness resources.
The two campaigns’ disagreement isn’t new to this cycle. Elrich, the outgoing executive, is the one who pulled SROs out of schools in 2021 after years of council debate, and he has endorsed Jawando as his successor.
Why it matters
“Whether that officer would have changed anything Thursday morning is unknowable.”
Thursday’s incident didn’t involve a firearm, and no one was hurt. But it’s exactly the kind of split-second scenario Van Grack, Hernández and Diaz have been pointing to for months: a fast-moving situation, an alleged assault on staff, and a second weapon discovered almost simultaneously, all inside a building that, five years ago, would have had an assigned police officer on site every school day.
“Thursday’s incident didn’t involve a firearm, and no one was hurt. But it’s exactly the kind of split-second scenario SRO advocates have been pointing to for months.”
Whether that officer would have changed anything Thursday morning is unknowable. That’s the argument county voters will be litigating between now and Nov. 3.
Sources: This report draws on statements and incident details from the Montgomery County Department of Police and Montgomery County Public Schools as reported by WTOP, NBC4 Washington, the Washington Times, Bethesda Today/Bethesda Magazine, DC News Now and the Daily Voice on Sept. 3, 2026, along with prior reporting from 7News/WJLA (May 12, 2026) on renewed calls for school resource officers from Rockville Councilmember Adam Van Grack and Gaithersburg Councilmember Yamil Hernández. Details on the Feb. 9, 2026 Wootton High School shooting and the resulting charges against the accused student come from DC News Now. Background on the SRO program’s 2020-2021 elimination comes from contemporaneous coverage by the Washington Post, Bethesda Magazine and Fox 5 DC, and from Montgomery County Council testimony on Bill 7-21. Brenda Diaz’s record on school policing, her current candidacy for the Board of Education’s at-large seat, and prior MDBayNews coverage of her position are drawn from Montgomery Perspective, the Local News Network/CNS Maryland, official 2024 general election returns from the Maryland State Archives, and MDBayNews’ own Sept. 3, 2026 reporting on her campaign. Candidate platform details for Will Jawando and Esther Wells are drawn from their campaign websites, contemporaneous primary and general election coverage from NBC4 Washington and WTOP, and Ballotpedia. Adam Van Grack’s Sept. 3 statement is drawn from his own social media post.
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