Cops took a 16-year-old Queens high school student into custody Tuesday after safety officers found an antique gun in his backpack.
But the teen, a student at Grover Cleveland High School in Ridgewood, told police that he never meant to use the unloaded and inoperable pistol, which was part of an art project, police sources said.
School safety agents at the Himrod St. school brought the teen to the principal’s office about 8 a.m. after the school metal detector revealed the gun in his backpack.
The teen claimed that the pistol was the subject of a photography class assignment and that he never intended to use it to hurt anyone.
School officials called the NYPD, which took the child into custody until his parents could be interviewed at the 104th Precinct.
No charges are expected to be filed.
The discovery comes as weapons seizures have skyrocketed in city schools, officials said.
From July 1 through Sept. 30, police recovered 328 weapons at public schools. Last year, it was 222 for the same time period.
That’s an increase of 48%, police said.
Last month, Bronx high school senior Abel Cedeno smuggled a knife into class and fatally stabbed classmate Matthew McCree and wounded another at the Urban Assembly School for Wildlife Conservation in West Farms, according to authorities.
The Sept. 27 bloodshed, at a school that did not have metal detectors, played out in front of a packed classroom of terrified students.
Cedeno has been charged with murder and attempted murder.
A school employee found a second knife in the same classroom hours after the fatal stabbing.
In a jailhouse interview, Cedeno said he was being constantly harassed for being bisexual and “just snapped” when he lunged at McCree and Ariane LaBoy, both 16, who had not tormented him before that day.
