A Palm Beach State College student was arrested after a professor discovered a loaded handgun inside a bag left behind in a physics and calculus classroom on the school’s Palm Beach Gardens campus. The bag had reportedly sat unattended for about 15 minutes before the professor found the weapon and alerted campus security, according to investigators.
Police officers responded to the campus at 3160 PGA Boulevard at 2:53 p.m. Wednesday after receiving a report of a student with a firearm on school property, as reported by WPBF. By the time officers arrived, a campus security officer had already removed the firearm from the bag, secured it, and ejected its magazine, the outlet reported. A records check found the gun had not been reported stolen.
The weapon was identified as a Springfield Hellcat 9mm handgun, a micro-compact pistol measuring about an inch wide and weighing 18 ounces empty, with a standard flush magazine holding 11 rounds, per Springfield Armory’s specifications. Inside the same bag, officers found a driver’s license and a concealed carry permit belonging to Kobey Obrian Parchment, according to the report. Parchment later returned to the classroom, where authorities took him into custody.
Permit Holder, But No Legal Cover on Campus
Parchment told investigators the firearm belonged to him and that he had accidentally left it behind, the outlet’s report notes. But holding a valid concealed weapon permit does not authorize anyone to carry or possess a firearm inside a Florida college or university facility — an explicit carve-out written into Florida Statute § 790.06(12)(a)(13), according to Online Sunshine, the state’s official statutes portal…