PROSSER, Wash. -- A novelty cigarette lighter shaped like a gun Prosser High School into a lockdown and brought out police.

Taking it for a real gun, school staff put the school in 25-minute lockdown at 10 this morning after receiving a tip from a student, said Principal Kevin Lusk.

Some of the students were evacuated from the area where the suspected gun was, he said.

Prosser Police took the student from a classroom into custody to the Prosser police station. That’s when they learned the suspected gun was only a lighter, Lusk said.

The student did not intend the incident as prank, Lusk said.

However, the boy was sent home from the school as an “emergency expulsion,” while administrators decide what, if any, discipline is warranted.

-- Ross Courtney