DELANO, Calif. (KERO) — Students and staff at McFarland High School experienced a scare on October 4, that has become more and more common. Though the threat was false, the district says they took all precautions necessary.
- On Friday, October 4, a call came in shortly after 11 am stating that someone was locked inside one of McFarland High bathrooms with an AR-15 ready to commit a school shooting.
- Around 11:20, officers were on scene and roughly 25 minutes later, the school was cleared as no one was found fitting that description.
According to the District, alerts were sent out to parents. But lack of information coming from the police department instilled more of a panic within parents and students.
School shooting threats have become an increasing concern all over nation, and on Friday, that concern hit home to the parents, staff and students at McFarland High School. One teacher says most panic could have been avoided.
“We have a popular saying that news travels fast but unfortunately these days, it feels that rumors travel even faster and people are quick to react,” said Drama teacher at McFarland High School Crismat Mateo.
Mateo says his students were fairly calm during the ordeal and while he is thankful for that, that may not have been the case for others.
On October 4, calls came in to the police department a little after 11 am reporting someone was in a McFarland High School bathroom with an AR-15 with intents of committing a school shooting.
“We still weren’t given a lot of information but now we also that's because even our administrators were given very limited information on what was really going on,” said Mateo.
Superintendent for the McFarland Unified School District Aaron Resendez says while the district did inform parents of the situation as early as 11:56 am, extra precautions were also put in place.
“As a precaution even though what we knew, we knew at that time was that this was occurring at McFarland High School, we elected to lock down all of our schools,” said Resendez.
According to Mateo, students and staff were on lock down for roughly an hour and a half and in that time, it only led to wide spread rumors on the situation.
A final statement sent to parents on Tuesday revealed that rumors escalated even more with false reports of shots fired on campus.
Resendez wants parents to know that as stressful as these situations can be, if the information doesn’t come directly from the district or law enforcement, it’s most likely false.
“I would rather be in a situation where I apologize to the community for an overwhelming response to a threat like this than be in a situation where we apologize for not responding, for not locking down, for not having an overwhelming police presence,” said Resendez.
Understanding that concerns are still active, a parent forum will take place on October 16, at 5 pm in McFarland high’s multipurpose room.
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