Lockdown
- Matthew Hipolito
- Mar 21, 2015
- 2 min read
During 5th period, February 3rd, 2015, a suspicious object was found in the school’s North parking lot, causing the school to be placed in an immediate emergency lockdown. “Mrs. McVay found the object on her way back from lunch,” Mr. Turner said. “We didn’t know what it was. It had writing. Profanity, BTMS, and the word ‘bomb’ written on it, and it had a picture of a bomb on it.”
The first course of action was to put the school into a “modified lockdown”, and evacuate the students in classrooms that were near the object away from it.
“We were evacuated to the cafeteria,” said Mrs. Case, whose classroom was closest to the object. “I had them [the students] bring their books and we just kept working.” Benjamin Eyman, one of Mrs. Case’s students during 5th period, said, “It was something new, but that was really it.”
“The Washington State Patrol bomb squad came out with their big truck, and one of the gentlemen put on the full protective suit, and walked out to the object with a wire and appeared to take an X-ray of the item. He also set up an explosive device- it’s basically like a remote control shotgun that they shoot into an item to try to explode it if they think it’s a concern. The x-ray came back negative; there was no indication that it was a bomb or an explosive device, so they shot the shotgun, blew a hole in the side, and that was that,” said Mr. Turner.
Even though the situation thankfully resolved itself without an explosion, that’s not to say the culprit, at the time of writing, unidentified, will not face repercussions. “[If we found out who it was] there would be an immediate emergency expulsion, followed by school discipline,” says Mr. Turner. On top of academic repercussions, which could ruin the culprit’s academic and vocational prospects, “There would be legal repercussions, and I would expect that it would also involve the cost of sending the bomb squad out. I can’t even imagine how much it costs the state to do that.”
Mr. Turner praised the students’ performance, saying they performed “wonderfully.” As for the object, described by him as “yard art… a flamingo,”, at the time of the incident, there appeared to be no consensus as to what it was, nor what was going on until Mr. Cohn’s announcement of the situation.
“I tried not to speculate as to what it was,” Mrs. Case says. “Speculation leads to fear. It’s a sign of the times.”
The Brier Police Department declined to comment on the matter, saying that “the suspicious object was determined not to be a threat and was taken care of the the WSP. This incident is closed with no further information at this time.”
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