The Enfield Police Department expects to file charges against three juveniles who were involved in an assault on a student during a bus drop-off in the town limits Tuesday, Chief Eric Johnson said.

The bus was dropping off students from Southeast Collegiate Preparatory Academy at the time, the school system said in an earlier statement.

Johnson said in a statement this afternoon that, according to officers who worked the investigation, at least one student was assaulted by the suspects who were wearing ski masks. There was information from some of the students on the bus that a firearm was present. That information could not be confirmed and the three had left by the time law enforcement arrived.

The call came in shortly before 4 p.m. regarding people who entered a stopped school bus in the area of South McDaniel and East Alsop streets.

The information was phoned into a concerned parent by a student who was on the bus. 

The information related to central communications was that the three were also wearing hooded sweatshirts in addition to the masks.

Johnson said the information indicated that the suspects were attempting to attack others on the bus.

The Halifax County Sheriff’s Office and the North Carolina State Highway Patrol assisted.

Enfield police Detective Montez Fields is leading this investigation.