Box of bullets discovered inside art supply shipment at Suffolk County high school
The Eastport-South Manor School District said the teacher was doing a routine inventory check of a new school-year supply order from Blick Art Materials while alone in their classroom when the ammunition was found.
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A suspected shipping error caused concern at a Manorville high school Tuesday after a teacher unpacking art supplies discovered a box of bullets.
The Eastport-South Manor School District said the teacher was doing a routine inventory check of a new school-year supply order from Blick Art Materials while alone in their classroom when the ammunition was found.
According to the district, the bullets were contained in a separate, sealed box within the shipment. The teacher immediately stopped unpacking and notified school administrators and security staff.
Suffolk County police were called and took possession of the box.
The district says based on a preliminary investigation, "It is clear that this was a severe packaging and shipping error made by the external vendor or distributor as the label for the smaller box was to be shipped to a sports store in Louisiana."
The district said they are going to contact the supplier to investigate how the mix-up happened and ensure it doesn't occur again.
A spokesperson with Blick Art Materials released the following statement:
"We were informed today that an unopened box of ammunition addressed to a sporting goods store in Louisiana was intermingled with one of our shipments to our customer in Manorville, New York. The sporting goods store is not a Blick customer.
Based on the information available to us, our current understanding is that the package may have been inadvertently mixed with a Blick shipment during third-party carrier handling. Blick uses well-known third-party carriers. These carriers handle the complex task of transporting millions of packages from thousands of companies efficiently, and occasionally shipments from different parties can become mixed.
We understand the concern on the part of the school district. Blick has reached out to the Superintendent's office and is awaiting a return call. We will provide more information as we receive it."
The company also stated that it "does not sell, store, or package ammunition in its facilities."
