The juvenile charged with firing a weapon in the parking lot outside Washington’s movie theater Saturday night has been identified as the student who brought an Airsoft BB gun to Washington High School and allegedly shot two students in an earlier incident.

During follow up investigation, police determined this week that Evan Spencer, 16, of Beargrass Road, Williamston, had been previously arrested by Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office deputies for the February BB gun incident at WHS, according to a press release from Lt. William Chrismon, spokesman for Washington Police Department.

At 10:40 p.m. Saturday night, Spencer was arrested again after a single shot was fired in the parking lot of Carmike Cinema 7 at Washington Square Mall, sending police to the scene and witnesses scrambling to take cover inside the theater. Both Spencer and the firearm, a .38 Smith and Wesson revolver, were located and Spencer charged with possession of a firearm by a minor and discharging a firearm within city limits.

“We’re working with the ATF to determine who the last legal owner of the gun was,” Chrismon said.

Chrismon said there is no clear motive as to why the shot was fired.

The two students shot during the February incident at WHS were unharmed and Spencer arrested, however, at the time, Sheriff Ernie Coleman referred to the incident as a tragedy averted. The Airsoft gun used bears so much similarity to a 1911 pistol that a school resource officer or other law enforcement could have easily mistaken the BB gun for a real firearm and proceeded with “whatever force necessary, up to and including deadly force,” Coleman said. School administration and law enforcement did not find out about the incident until well after that school day ended and the Airsoft gun was later found abandoned outside the local Walmart.

Chrismon said the District Attorney’s Office and Washington Police Department are working to address what appears to be a pattern of conduct involving possession and use of weapons by the defendant.

“We are seeing an escalation of events that put him in the spotlight,” Chrismon said. “We are giving him the attention necessary to make sure we’re dotting all the i’s and crossing all the t’s.”

After his arrest Saturday night, Spencer was originally cited and released to his mother, but once the connection was made to the February incident at WHS, the conditions of his release were modified and an order for was arrest issued, according to Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office Chief Deputy Charlie Rose.

Spencer was picked up by sheriff’s office deputies Tuesday and detained at the Beaufort County Detention Center under a $5,000 secured bond.