Gilroy High School students were locked down for more than two
hours Friday morning while police officers, armed with M-16 rifles,
searched the campus for a student who threatened to shoot a
teacher, police said.
From staff reports
GILROY –– Gilroy High School students were locked down for more than two hours Friday morning while police officers, armed with M-16 rifles, searched the campus for a student who threatened to shoot a teacher, police said.
No shots were fired, no injuries were reported and no arrests had been made as of noon Friday.
The caller dialed 9-1-1 at 9:29 a.m. Friday from a cell phone and said he was going to bring a gun to school and shoot Diana Burkholder, his cooking teacher, police said.
Capt. Scot Smithee said the student was upset with a particular teacher, ”and if she didn’t lay off of him he was going to shoot her.”
”Our whole orientation after Columbine is a quick immediate response,” Asst. Police Chief Lanny Brown said. ”The information we had was at a level that very much concerned us and the school district.”
The campus was locked down at 9:36 a.m., and remained locked down all morning as two teams of Gilroy police officers walked through campus carrying rifles, searching for the student. At one point, California Highway Patrol officers donned shields and helmets in the incident command area in an overflow parking near the high school’s baseball field.
As of 11:40 a.m., police had made two sweeps of the campus and were discussing when to end the lockdown.
”There’s no reason to believe a student with a gun is on campus right now,” Brown said.
Principal Bob Bravo was out of the district Friday and not on campus.
Meanwhile, police were on ”red alert” and dozens of public safety vehicles were on campus, including the Gilroy Police, California Highway Patrol, Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Department and the Gilroy Fire Department. They set up a perimeter around the school, and inside the building students were ordered under their desks. Sheriff’s deputies helped cordon off Tenth Street from Hanna Street to Miller Avenue, near Christmas Hill Park. At noon it was still blocked.
Television and radio crews responded, and at least one news helicopter and a CHP plane circled over the school.
Meanwhile, frantic students called their parents from cell phones and lines to the Gilroy police station were jammed.
”I could tell that she was afraid,” said Mark Zappa of his daughter, a junior. ”My feeling is that I feel very powerless and I would like to conduct my own little operation to get my daughter off campus, but obviously that can’t happen.
”I hope they hurry up with whatever they’re doing and get the kids off campus.”
The 9-1-1 call came from a cell phone reported stolen earlier this morning. The call came into CHP dispatchers who transferred it to GPD, but Smithee wasn’t sure how long the student remained on the line with GPD dispatchers.
Burkholder was on break at the time of the call. She was secured in an office by police, who questioned her until 10:30 a.m., police said. She gave them the name of a student she thought might be a possible suspect. The student was pulled from his classroom but police said he was not connected to the threatening phone call.
Louie Cortez, an 18-year-old senior who was in Spanish class, said students were getting phone calls from family and friends with rumors ranging from there just being a threat to hostages taken.
“We’re just hearing a bunch of rumors and news reports, and we’re getting different things. I don’t know what to think. I don’t know what to believe,” he said. “We’re just sitting around talking, trying to find a news channel that’s covering it.”
The call made prior to the 9-1-1 call was made to a Ronan Avenue address. Police went to the address, but no one was home.
As of noon, no arrests had been made and police continued to search for the caller.
Between 30 and 40 parents and students, who weren’t inside the school at the time of the lockdown, gathered at Glenn View School where school district officials told them students inside the school were safe and would be released shortly.
Zappa was one of the parents standing in the parking lot. More parents were showing up for the periodical briefings. Parents gathered on Princevalle and Tenth streets, as well, waiting for word on how the students were.
