A 16-year-old Shaler Area High School student who led police on a search for nine hours Thursday after his mother found a gun on his bed was taken into custody late in the afternoon.

Multiple law enforcement agencies searched Shaler and surrounding neighborhoods with a drone and dogs for the teen who fled into the woods after arguing with his mother about the handgun, police said.

Later Thursday afternoon, police issued a warrant for the juvenile’s arrest as he remained at large. They took him into custody after Allegheny County sheriff’s deputies set up surveillance at a home along Soose Road in Shaler.

“Due to the actor being a juvenile, I will not be providing any further information including name and/or photo or details concerning charges,” Shaler police Chief J. Sean Frank said.

The incident began after a Shaler Area High School student’s mother found the handgun on the teen’s bed when waking him for school around 7:15 a.m., Frank said.

Her son demanded that she return it to him, police said.

She refused.

He then said, “If you don’t give me that gun, I’ll be dead,” then fled the house into the woods around the 1400 block of Anderson Road, Frank said.

Multiple residents of that residential block declined to comment Thursday.

A small patch of woods separates Anderson Road from Shaler Area High School, which stands at 381 Wible Run Road.

The nearly 1,200-student high school went into a “secure status” — where no visitors are allowed in and no students allowed to leave — “out of an abundance of caution,” district Superintendent Bryan E. O’Black said in a prepared statement.

O’Black told families and community members to avoid the area until further notice.

“Enhanced screening procedures are in place,” he added. “We are working closely with law enforcement to maintain the safety and security of our students and staff.”

Frank said students did not seem to be in danger.

“There’s no threat to the school,” he told reporters. “But we, as a law enforcement agency, take a person with a gun seriously.”

Frank said the teen did not threaten anybody and there was no physical contact during the argument in his bedroom.

Police did not reveal who owned the gun. Frank said officers retrieved the student’s backpack in the woods. It contained no weapons.

Authorities do not know at this time whether the teen has other weapons, Frank said. Police have the handgun that his mother found.

The gun had previously been reported “lost” outside Shaler, Frank said. It appeared someone tried to scratch off its serial number.

A state police helicopter was deployed in the search, Frank said. Officers assisted from other jurisdictions, from Allegheny County Police and sheriff’s deputies to agents from the FBI’s Pittsburgh office.

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