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Parents Upset Over School’s Unannounced Lockdown Drill

Parents of children who attend a Winter Haven, Florida school are upset that a police officer with an assault rifle entered a classroom during school lockdown drill.

At the time the drill was happening at Jewett Middle Academy, just three people knew it was a drill. According to the school district, parents, students and teachers were not made aware of it in advance that, which caused many students to text their parents in panic. The school district said the surprise element is important to ensure the drill’s effectiveness.

In a statement released by the Polk County School District, the goal wasn’t to scare students but make sure they were safe. It said that nobody ever gets advanced notice of an actual emergency.

Many schools around the country have similar drills but it’s typically up to the local districts to lay out the specifics of how drills play out.

Police said the school has had two non-drill lockdowns already but neither had an active shooter. The first incident came when someone heard what was believed to be a gunshot. No gunman was found. The second incident involved threatening note recovered from the school’s trash.

According to Jamie Brown, a Winter Haven Police Department spokeswoman, the school was notified by the school’s intercom system as the lockdown was happening. Teachers are to respond to certain protocols to ensure children’s safety.

Brown said a known school resource officer using a loaded pistol in the holster and local officer using an unloaded AR-15 went from each classroom, letting teachers and students know that it was just a drill. Brown said no guns were ever pointed at students.

Stacy Ray said her children texted her scared that police had guns in the classroom.

Lauren Marionneaux, one of Ray’s children, said many people were scared because they felt the drill was real. They thought, she said, somebody was going to come in and kill them.

Ray said she was panicked because she thought there was an actual shooter on the grounds.

Ray isn’t alone in this thought. Cherrise Tate said her son’s dad ran to the school after getting a text from his child. Tate said her husband almost got a ticket trying to get to the school.

According to Jason Geary, a Poly County Public Schools spokesman, an email was sent out afterwards to let them know what happened and that incident was being looked at by the Department of Safe Schools. The district said it would continue using unannounced drills but would not have uniformed officers carrying guns during them.

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Posted by on Nov 17 2014. Filed under New. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

2 Comments for “Parents Upset Over School’s Unannounced Lockdown Drill”

  1. This is a policy, not a random exercise. The purpose of the drill is to keep children and parents in fear of guns. The best policy would be to dismantle and eliminate all the police forces in the US.

    Deaths against Americans would greatly decline and you wouldn’t have to worry about your dog being shot to death. Police can’t stop a crime, police can’t prevent anything but show up and do paperwork. They are nothing but glorified secretaries as they show up after the incident.

    The drills have nothing to do with school shootings and everything to do with destroying the 2nd amendment.

    A better solution would be to outlaw SSRIs, which is the main reason people commit suicide or public shootings. Another great solution, would be to destroy all guns…so no one has them. Unfortunately, as in all organized crime, like the Obama administration, they need guns to protect themselves from their sociopathic and criminal behavior.

    Showing up in a school with a gun is not the way to handle the problem with school shootings…and they know it, but then again solving problems is not something the state or feds know how to do, let alone want to do, especially when they can keep parents and children in a state of constant fear.

    Google de facto…our current government status…that should help connect some dots about what’s happening in Weimar America.

  2. when a person brandishes a weapon, or points a weapon at you, that is felony assault. each cop who pointed a weapon at a student or teacher, is guilty of assault. they admitted as much when they confessed it was a drill. every person involved in the drill is guilty of felony assault with a deadly weapon. this is a FACT. time to press charges. if you cannot get the DA to agree to charges, file a civil suit.

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