CV High Locked Down After Boy Makes Threat Student Said He Would Return To School To Shoot Someone

Officials at Central Valley High School declared a lockdown Tuesday after an angry student threatened to return to campus and shoot someone.

No one was hurt, and officials said students cooperated. But the lockdown did lead to some confusion, including a fire alarm pulled in the midst of the incident.

After-school sports practices and other activities were canceled.

The incident began when Vice Principal Dennis Hill suspended a 17-year-old senior.

“The student became outraged because he was being put under long-term suspension and he made a threat,” said Skip Bonuccelli, Central Valley spokesman.

“He said he was going to get a weapon and shoot somebody.”

The suspension followed previous behavior problems.

Officials called the student’s parents and the Sheriff’s Department, and the student eventually was sent home with his parents. But a phone call later in the morning alerted the school that the student had disappeared from a doctor’s office where his parents apparently had taken him, Bonuccelli said.

Fearful that the boy would carry out his threat, officials imposed a lockdown just before noon.

Students at lunch were sent back to classrooms. Those in class were told to stay there. Window blinds were drawn and doors were locked.

As word of the lockdown spread, someone pulled a fire alarm. A lockdown alarm was never activated, Principal Paul Sturm said.

Some teachers were confused.

“I was in algebra class and my teacher mistook it for a fire drill, so he took us outside,” sophomore Julie Kanago said.

“We stepped out the door into the hall and saw people wandering in both directions,” Kanago said. Before Kanago and the others left the building, they were directed back into their room.

Once everyone was back in class, teaching continued as scheduled.

When students were dismissed for the day, they were told afternoon activities were canceled. Officials told students to go straight to their buses or cars, without stopping to talk to friends.

“Not very many people were taking it seriously,” Kanago said. “They were joking about it.”

Sturm and Bonuccelli said students they talked to agreed the lockdown was a sensible precaution to take. At the end of the afternoon, school officials said they did not know the whereabouts of the suspended senior.

Central Valley practiced the lockdown procedure last year, Sturm said, but no drills have been conducted this year.

“Of course, we have 500 sophomores who didn’t go through that drill” last year, Sturm said. “But kids tend to do what they’re told. And our kids did what they were told.”

It helped that posters with directions for lockdown procedures are displayed in all Central Valley High classrooms, he said.

“Under the circumstances … I think all of those pieces played out and worked the way they were supposed to,” Sturm said.