A second-grade Queens pupil sent a school into lockdown yesterday when he showed up with a semiautomatic handgun, police said.
Tyler Farley, 7, was brought to Wave Preparatory School in Far Rockaway by his mother, Deborah Farley, 53, at about 7:30 a.m. — and when the mom returned home, someone in the house told her the child may have gone to school with a gun stashed in his backpack, law-enforcement sources said.
Farley raced back and signed Tyler out, allegedly claiming she had to take him to the dentist, sources said.
She searched the backpack and asked the boy whether he had seen the gun, sources added.
Tyler said he gave the gun to another boy, and then he went with his mother at 10:10 a.m. to tell the principal what had happened, sources said.
The school, which has held safety drills since the Newtown massacre, went into lockdown.
A flare gun was found in the second youngster’s backpack, police said.
“I was crying. I was scared. I was hiding under the table for so long I couldn’t feel my legs,” said student Eneisha Perez, 9.
Adults did a thorough search of Tyler’s backpack and found a .22-caliber pistol, a magazine with 10 rounds and at least seven more bullets in a plastic bag, sources said.
The magazine was not in the gun, but it was not immediately clear whether the pistol was loaded with a round in the chamber, sources added.
The gun was confiscated by school safety agents.
Detectives are investigating if one of Tyler’s older brothers put the gun in the bag, thinking he wouldn’t go to school because of the bus strike; or if Tyler found it and put it in the backpack himself, sources said.
Both of the boy’s brothers, who are in their 20s, are known to the police, and one had been a shooting victim, sources said.
Cops are seeking a search warrant to look through their home. There were no licensed gun owners at the home, police said.
No one has been charged yet in the incident.
Upon dismissal, parents were handed a sheet of paper informing them about the school being locked down, but there was no information given to them about the gun incident.