FAIRFIELD, Calif. — Fairfield Police Department officers responded to a locked down Vanden High School Friday morning about a possible person with a gun on campus — something they said was found to be a hoax.
Vanden and neighboring schools were forced to go on lockdown around 8:25 a.m. due to the report, bringing a scary end of the week to hundreds of students and staff members.
"Our teacher told us after like 15 minutes of sitting on the carpet, go under your desk, read quietly, so you have something over your head,” said Aliyah, a second grader at Center Elementary. "People started crying. There were like five students crying."
Families were notified of the lockdowns, and while some relatives of students say they trust their school to keep kids safe, they were still worried.
"We were really scared because we don't know what's going on," said grandmother Pamela Melders. "When we get the notices, it just tells us the school is on lockdown for safety measures. And we don't have the exact specifics. So it's quite scary because we know the children are there and we can't get to them at the time."
Israel Fuentes, a Vanden High School student ABC10 spoke with, says students were headed into class when the lockdown happened.
"This is not a drill, we are going into emergency lockdown. I wasn't even in class so I ran," he said.
Police say they received a call about someone with a gun on campus, the caller even gave a student's name to the dispatcher. They say this was likely a case of “swatting,” when someone prank calls police in hopes their call will result in a large police response, including the SWAT team.
The lockdown was lifted just over an hour after being issued. While it ended up being a hoax, students say it felt very real.
"When I got (my granddaughter), she came immediately telling me how scared she was and she was crying and she had to go under the desk,” said Melders. "Some other students were crying and they thought there was a shooter at school."
Rumors of a possible active shooter spread through the school, even having some students tell their parents about the situation who then showed up to the campus while officers were investigating.
"It was never put out, it was never issued or broadcast on our system as an active shooter. It's just unfortunately the way that the information gets traveling once third parties understand or hear what's going on," said Sgt. John Divine with the Fairfield Police Department.
Multiple students were questioned in connection to the original call. No one has been arrested and the investigation continues.
