A Chesterton High School student was charged Wednesday with felony counts of intimidation and possession of a firearm on school property after police reportedly found a gun in his car while it was in the high school parking lot.
Ryan Gengnagel, 18, of Valparaiso, is in custody at the Porter County Jail, according to jail records, after allegedly pointing a handgun at two people in the high school parking lot.
Around noon Tuesday, a witness who was getting into Gengnagel’s car had a verbal exchange with an acquaintance, listed in charging documents as Victim 1, calling Victim 1 a derogatory name because they had been in a previous relationship together.
Victim 1 pulled their car behind Gengnagel’s vehicle and Victim 1 and their passenger, Victim 2, got out of the car to confront the witness about the verbal exchange.
“While confronting W#1 who was in the passenger seat, V#1 and V#2 stated they observed Ryan Gengnagel with a black semi-automatic handgun on his lap,” documents state. “At some point during the confrontation, V#1 and V#2 reported that Ryan Gengnagel pointed the handgun in their direction.”
The witness took the gun away from Gengnagel and put it in the glove box, and the two reported victims got in their car and left after realizing Gengnagel waved a gun at them.
The victims left, documents state, and the witness, who is in a relationship with Gengnagel, went back into the school, with plans for Gengnagel to pick them up when school was out for the day.
Police set up a perimeter around the school building, according to charging documents, and Gengnagel contacted a friend and left the gun with the friend.
When police stopped Gengnagel’s vehicle when he returned to campus around 2:30 p.m., the gun was not in his glove box after he consented to a police search, according to the charges.
During a police interview, Gengnagel initially denied having the gun, charges state, then admitted to having the gun during the confrontation with the reported victims.
Gengnagel told police he leaves school after half a day for a work program and was dropping off lunch for the witness when he heard honking and saw Victim 1’s car behind his. The two victims wanted him to roll his window down and when he wouldn’t, they began to pound on his window, documents state.
Gengnagel told police he “pulled out his handgun which he purchased from a friend and just had it on his lap.” He told police he wanted to scare off the reported victims if they saw the gun “and never pointed it at them or threatened them with the handgun.’
Police later retrieved the gun from Gengnagel’s friend’s house.
Gengnagel is scheduled for an initial hearing Thursday morning before Porter Superior Court Mary DeBoer when his bond will be addressed, according to online court records.
alavalley@chicagotribune.com
