On February 16, 2000, appellant V.P., then fourteen years old, hid a gun in a friend’s backpack during the bus ride to his middle school. When they arrived at school, he retrieved the gun and asked M.M. to hold it for him. The friend in whose backpack the gun was hidden approached Lance Cox, the Austin Independent School District Police Officer assigned to the school, and told Cox that V.P. had a gun on campus. Cox and Ira Williams, the school’s hall monitor, excused V.P. from his class and brought him to speak to Vince Trevino, an assistant principal. V.P. eventually told Trevino where the gun was, and Cox arrested him. V.P. was adjudicated delinquent for the offense of bringing a weapon into a prohibited place and was placed on probation for fourteen months, to be served at a treatment facility in Corsicana. Tex. Penal Code Ann. � 46.03(a)(1) (West Supp. 2001). He appeals in two points of error, arguing the district court erred in refusing to suppress his oral confession and the gun. We will affirm.
Factual Background V.P. testified that he brought the gun, which did not work, to school because he was afraid that a group of bullies who had been harassing him would jump him. He testified that when he got to school he retrieved the gun from his friend’s backpack and put it in his own backpack. He asked another friend, M.M., to hold the gun for him because he did not want to be caught with it in his possession. The boys went into a restroom, V.P. gave M.M. the gun, and the boys returned to their classes. Williams and Cox then got V.P. out of class and said they had heard he had brought “something illegal” onto campus. V.P. denied knowing anything, and Cox frisked him. Cox and Williams walked V.P. to Trevino’s office, where the adults questioned him; Cox left the office during the questioning. V.P. testified that he denied having the gun and asked to talk to his mother and his lawyer as soon as he was asked about it. He said he told the adults his lawyer’s name and said they could contact his sister and reach his lawyer and mother through her. V.P. said he first denied knowing about the gun, but then admitted having brought it to school and given it to M.M. Trevino radioed Cox to report that M.M. had the gun, and V.P. and Williams went to M.M.’s classroom; V.P. said Cox and Trevino followed behind them. V.P. told M.M. that the adults knew about the gun and to “just give it up.” M.M. walked back to the principal’s office with V.P., Williams, Cox, and Trevino and gave the gun to the adults. Cox then handcuffed V.P. and took him to Cox’s office, where Cox read V.P. his rights and asked him to fill in some papers and sign his name. Cox took V.P.’s photograph and fingerprints and drove him to Gardner-Betts Juvenile Center. V.P. did not try to leave Trevino’s office at any point. He said he did not think he could leave “because [he] was in a serious situation.”
Cox testified that the girl in whose backpack V.P. had originally hidden the gun approached Cox just before classes started and told him V.P. had brought a gun to school. She described the gun and said it had been hidden in her backpack on the way to school. Cox believed her, so he and Williams got V.P. out of class. Cox asked V.P. if he had anything he was not supposed to have, and V.P. said no. Cox asked if he could search V.P., and V.P. consented. He said they then walked V.P. to Trevino’s office.*fn1 The adults asked V.P. about the gun, and V.P. denied it and “got somewhat defensive.” About three or four minutes after he walked V.P. to Trevino’s office, Cox left to look elsewhere for the gun. While searching the halls and restrooms, he saw Williams walking M.M. towards Trevino’s office, so he returned with them. Once the gun was located, Cox brought V.P. to his office, read him his rights from a written warning form, and had him read and sign the warning and a waiver on the bottom of the form. Cox then called V.P.’s mother to tell her about the situation and to ask her to come to the school.
