Harris Elementary School was locked down Wednesday afternoon after a student reported someone may have shot at him with a BB gun.
Just before school ended Wednesday, the student was setting up traffic cones in the crosswalk when he heard something whiz by and strike a nearby fence, he told school staff. The student also saw a man standing in the yard of a house across the street from the school.
Because the incident happened near the end of the school day, school officials opted to keep students inside while law enforcement investigated, said Scott Rogers, superintendent of the Tooele County School District.
“It was what they call ‘shelter in place,’” he said, noting that a shelter in place is much less severe than a full-out lockdown. “We waited with the kids in the building and didn’t let them walk home until we got the ‘all-clear.’”
Lt. Adrian Day, of the Tooele City Police Department, said responding officers questioned the man identified by the student as being in the yard at the time of the alleged incident. They found no indication there, or at any homes near the school, that someone had shot at people with a BB gun.
One arrest was made, however, on an arrest warrant for another matter, he said.
“When we showed up, we made an arrest because a suspect had a warrant,” said Day. “Nobody was hit. There wasn’t any proof [of a BB gun being fired] — it could have been a rock or something else.”
Day said the investigation into the incident was closed on Thursday.
Rogers said the shelter in place order was lifted within about 10 minutes after the school day’s final bell sounded. Although the incident was investigated and some parents may have been alarmed, Rogers believes the correct action was taken.
He said school district officials also tried to keep parents up-to-date on the matter via Facebook and Twitter, and answered questions in an effort to make sure the correct information was available.
“When kids come in and say, ‘I think there is a BB gun,’ you want to err on the safe side. You want to hope this doesn’t happen in the community, but you can’t be naive,” said Rogers. “We don’t overreact, but we say, ‘Let’s not have our kids walking home.’”
The superintendent commended the administration of Harris Elementary, as well as Tooele City Police for their swift response.
“[Principal Andy] Peterson made the right decision by not letting the kids out, because you just don’t know,” added Rogers. “We’re going to always err on the safe side. We have some really good safety protocols in place — student and parent safety is our number one [priority].”