posted on March 8, 2001 02:55:53 PM new
Today at 12:45 my local (Las Cruces, New Mexico) radio stations started announcing that one of the three highschools (Onate) was in lockdown because of reports of a student with a gun.
They then started reporting that students had been shot.
At around 2:30 police reported that 1) The school was in lockdown because of a report of a student with a gun, and 2) There had been no injuries.
It has now been reported that there was no gun and that three students thought it would be fun to see what happened if one was reported.
The school is located next to the main highway, and frantic parents are still lined up along both sides trying to get to their kids. The lockdown is over and students will be alowed to leave with parents or on their busses.
Personally, I don't know who I want to kick first....the 14 year old student who thought this would be a fun afternoon or the management of the radio stations that released false information. All but one of the stations reported that students had been shot. The one who didn't publicly thanked their management for 'keeping a lid' on the excited DJ's (all from the area) who wanted to release the false information.
That's a very serious situation; I know that if I had heard of a similar incident when my son was in school, I would have been panic-stricken. As it was, the possibility would cross my mind at random times. And the last couple of years that I taught, the thought would enter my mind of the possibility of a kid entering the high school and cutting loose.
But for about fifteen years, beginning in the middle seventies, my high school received several bomb threats a year. Some from students and others were believed to be warped pranksters. The kids were immediately evacuated to the school grounds, pretty spacious, a safe distance from the building, so of course, they also enjoyed the idea of missing a class or two until the local explosives team could arrive and check the buildings. Gun threats, though, would be much more problematic to handle.
News of the bomb threats was never reported to the media. What the school distict needs to do is determine a policy, including who is to contact media and at what point and make the media aware that they are to ignore any other sources of information. That would be the only means to contain similar false alarms in the future.
[ edited by Antiquary on Mar 8, 2001 03:48 PM ]
posted on March 8, 2001 04:04:51 PM new
Antiquary: I didn't know you were one of us (a teacher, that is)! I knew there was a reason I liked you.
I'm not sure how the story was first 'leaked'. Although Las Cruces is the second biggest city in NM, it is kind of hard to keep a secret around here.
I found out that there wasn't a gun because I was at the post office talking to the postal lady (I first heard about it on the radio in the car). Her daughter was at the school and her husband, a police officer, was at the scene. He called her to let her know what the situation was....and she told me. The radio stations still haven't reported that (although the El Paso news station did).
I remember bomb threats. The only one they pulled us out of school for was when I was a Freshmen.....after that they stopped evacuating the building (which I thought was rather stupid because you just never know). I graduated from one of the other local high schools in '93. I know there were guns in the schools back then, I saw them. One time I went back to the school to vist an old teacher (my favorite) for an interview I had to do (some stupid college class)....that was in '95. He told me to get the hell off of campus before the bell rung because there were reports that one the gangs were going to do a drive by of the school (in retaliation for a shooting that had happend the weekend before). The drive by didn't happen, but I often wonder when it will.
Last year, in Deming a kid brought a gun into the middle school and blew away a little girl, who he didn't even know.
Last spring three kids walked into my old highschool armed with bats and tire irons looking to 'get' one of the other students (the student wasn't there that day).
You know, I am to damn young to be talking about the 'good ol' days'.
posted on March 8, 2001 04:20:36 PM new
I thought that you knew that I was a teacher--taught for 30 years and retired about 4 years ago, when I was 51. heh heh
Yes, a larger city would be much more difficult to manage news, but still I would think that in the public interest it would be possible to work out some agreement to try to prevent alarming the public. Maybe a little public pressure would help. Tulsa, nearby, is a fairly good-sized city and yet they have managed to make arrangements with the media about false alarms. So there's hope.
Yes, the good old days. LOL. Occasionally the administration wouldn't evacuate when a bomb threat was received--have no idea how they reached the decision in those instances--but almost always they did evacuate. Of course, that was a continuing incentive for kids to call in false reports. The last few years that I taught all sorts of security additions and regulations were being added and considered. In ten more years I wonder what the schools will be like. Surveillance cameras everywhere for one thing I would imagine.
posted on March 8, 2001 04:45:47 PM new
This is absolutely no reflection on our valued teachers, Antiquary and Lotsafuzz included, but here's a new twist on gun toting in schools. A teacher was fired from the Kent School District (south of Seattle) the other day for bringing a gun to school! I'm still wondering what she had planned!
posted on March 8, 2001 05:07:58 PM new
We had a couple schools here around New Orleans LA close down because of copy-cat threats. Seems like kids found a new way to get out of school.
posted on March 8, 2001 05:41:01 PM new
In the spirt of the sick humor that most teachers need to survive:
Was talking with a friend of mine who works at Onate and suggested she start carrying her gun around (again, this was a joke). She said the hell with having it in her purse....she wants her strapped to her hip!
The latest info is that the two boys who started the 'prank' told someone (a teacher, principal, someone like that) that they had seen a male student in one of the boys bathrooms dressed in black, with a gun and bullets.
The school went into lockdown and the police were called. While the police were searching, other officers were questioning the boys. The showed them one of the ROTC 'guns' (it ain't a gun....it looks like a wooden rifle, all white, no trigger, no nothin', used for pre-game, ect.) The kids said it 'kind of looked like that'. The cops seperated the kids and their story fell apart.
The are still at the police station, but it seems they can only be charged with filing a false report (a misdemeaner here). There is speculation that the kids parents could be held responsible for the cost of calling out the calvery.
Edited to add: Personally, I think the kids should be locked in a room with the 300+ parents that waited outside that school for three hours not knowing what the hell was going on.
