Jeffords
NEW CITY – A Rockland County grand jury has indicted a former Rockland
County BOCES teacher’s aide on a felony charge of criminal possession
of a weapon on school grounds and three counts of endangering the welfare
of a child as misdemeanors.
The charges stem from Gillian Jeffords, 24, of Warwick, bringing a loaded
.9 mm pistol to class along with four loaded magazines containing 28 rounds
of ammunition, 14 of which were hollow point rounds.
Jeffords worked at the Jesse J. Kaplan School in West Nyack.
On March 29, 2018, she reported to work and placed her pocketbook on a
bin in a classroom closet.
Not long after, according to the charges, a fellow employee accidentally
knocked over the pocketbook and spotted the pistol.
Administrators at Rockland BOCES placed the campus into lockdown, with
the Clarkstown Police school resource officer responding to the scene.
The closet in which Jeffords allegedly left the pistol was accessed by
the students regularly. The bin in which she placed her purse was used
to store student bathing suits.
Three students were in the classroom at the time Jeffords put the purse
in the closet.
She was later fired from BOCES.
If convicted, she faces up to four years in state prison.
