HOUSTON – A teacher at a private high school in Tomball was arrested after he brought a loaded gun to school and made “alarming” statements to a co-worker, according to court documents.
Mark Alan Davis, 62, faces a felony charge of possession of a prohibited weapon and a misdemeanor charge of exhibition of a firearm after he allegedly brought a semi-automatic handgun to Concordia Lutheran High School Tuesday, court documents reveal. Davis teaches U.S. history and world geography at the school, according to a Facebook post by school officials.
A school employee reported to the Tomball Police Department that they had talked to Davis Tuesday in the commons area of the school. The employee told police Davis “appeared to be more angry than usual,” and that Davis said the principal had “screwed him,” by giving him a bad reference when he applied for a job at a different school. Davis also said that he felt that a coach at the school had discriminated against him, according to court documents.
Davis told the employee that the treatment he’d received from the principal “is the reason that people ‘snap,'" officials wrote in court documents. The employee told police Davis said he was going to buy a Springfield automatic rifle and that he also had a gun at the school. The employee told police they felt “alarmed and concerned,” for the safety of the principal and the coach, so he contacted school security.
When the school security officer made contact with Davis in his classroom, he was carrying a briefcase on his shoulder with a handgun inside it, officials wrote in the court documents. The guard took the gun from Davis and asked him to leave school property, officials said.
Police said the firearm was a Kel-Tec P-32 .32 caliber handgun. It had seven bullets in a magazine that was inserted but no bullet in the chamber of the gun, officials said. The school principal and assistant principal told police Davis said he had the gun on school property to “protect the kids.”
School officials said on Facebook Wednesday that Davis was placed on administrative leave pending an internal investigation.
Though, some students said they were in disbelief.
“I believe that it was only there for our protection. He’s a great person. I can’t see him doing any harm to any students or teachers to any administration," Bradley Roeske, a junior at the school, said.
Local parents said a gun should never be on school property.
“I was shocked. I wasn’t expecting that a school of this caliber would have someone act out like that,” Melissa Spaulding, a parent, said.