Firearm found at Morganton YMCA camp triggers investigation, no charges filed

BURKE COUNTY, N.C. (QUEEN CITY NEWS) — The Morganton Department of Public Safety says no one will be charged after a gun was found Monday afternoon in a YMCA camper’s backpack at a YMCA summer camp at Mountain View Elementary School.

Sarah Winkler, who has three kids attending the summer camp, says it wasn’t the YMCA that first told her about the gun at summer camp, but instead she got a call from police.

“I’m frantically calling my husband, let’s go to the school, I don’t know what’s going on,” said Winkler.

Winkler says a police officer called her on Monday morning.

“He was just like. ‘Hi. We are at Mountain View Elementary, we have a gun on campus, and we have reason to believe that it is one of your children’s guns–that they have brought it,” said Winkler.

She says she checked her house and found the only gun there.

“I was like, ‘No sir, it’s not ours. We have one gun. It’s in my hand,’ and he said, ‘I will see you in a minute ma’am and hung up,” said Winkler.

When Winkler got to the school where the YMCA summer camp was going on, she says she saw her 11-year-old son alone in a room.

“He was terrified, but you could tell by looking at him, he knew he had done nothing wrong,” said Winkler.

She says several other kids were in desks in the hallway and that her 10-year-old daughter was also taken into a room and left alone.

“They definitely singled him out and I couldn’t tell you the reason,” said Winkler.

Hours later, they got another call from the police.

“We have figured it out, it’s not your family, and we are sorry,” said Winkler.

She says that’s not enough.

“The teachers in the school need to apologize to my children because they feel like they’ve done something wrong and they’ve not. They feel like–he doesn’t even understand why they think that would be him. And it’s just not alright, they don’t want to go back,” said Winkler.

Police say there won’t be any charges filed because another camper accidentally grabbed a backpack that had the gun and ammo inside it out of their parents’ car.

Police say the child found the gun when she was getting some things out for the day and told staff members right away.

The Morganton Department of Public Safety says they conducted more than 10 interviews and reviewed surveillance cameras to figure out where the gun came from and that the District Attorney’s Office did not recommend criminal charges, given the circumstances.

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