Jada Lopez,5, in kindergarten at PS 171 is greeted by her family after it was reported a student had a gun in the school.
A student carrying a Nerf gun caused a temporary panic and a 75-minute lockdown at a Bronx school Tuesday morning, police said. Nervous authorities closed off Public School 4 after an employee overheard two students talking about the “weapon” as they headed into the Crotona Park school, cops said. The worker quickly went to a school administrator with the report, and the K-8 school on Fulton Ave. was shut down at about 8:15 a.m. Parents soon gathered outside the school as word of the scare spread. Another version of the story says that a 911 caller reported seeing a teenage male with a backpack and possible gun near Elmont High School in Nassau County. The report sent SWAT teams, bomb squads and canine units rushing to the school around 7:40 a.m. Cops systematically searched lockers, bags and students.
“When we showed up, it was pure chaos,” said Mary Soto, whose granddaughter Jada Lopez is a kindergarten student at the school. Jada was told to get under their school desks.
There were parents, students, cops everywhere. They had the kids hiding under tables and in closets. The kids were really scared. [1]
Junior Stephanie Koiki interviewed by the New York Daily News said that all students were patted down and all lockers were searched. “My teacher kept the class calm. They (cops) didn’t pat the girls down, they patted the guys down. The female teachers patted the girls,” she said. “We just sat in our first period until the lockdown was over,” she said, adding that she wasn’t afraid. “They didn’t really tell us anything,” she said. [2]
Total chaos over a Nerf Toy Gun…
It turned out the 12-year-old student’s “gun” was a harmless weapon that fires foam bullets — but that didn’t calm down parents. The parents were forcefully removed from the school entrance.
Vanessa Sanchez, whose son Adam is a first-grader, complained she and others were kept in the dark about the incident. “When I called, they said nothing was going on,” said Sanchez, 38. “It’s just incredible that something like this, whether it’s real or not, can happen and there’s no system to contact parents.” [3] Little Adam Sanchez said his teacher put the students in the corner of their classroom — and the scared kids had no idea what was going on. Vanessa Sanchez brought her boy home after the lockdown was lifted shortly after 9:30 a.m. The school reopened, but parents were given the option of taking their children home for the day.
Some people were pissed to see all this idiocy
Education Department spokeswoman Margie Feinberg said the school principal called for the lockdown after hearing “a rumor” about a student with a gun inside the building. The facility holds a grammar school, a middle school and the Leadership Academy high school. The all-clear was finally given around 1:30 p.m. and students began filing out of the building. All students and staff are safe and secure.
Byron Blair, a worried parent, was at the scene when all this chaos broke loose. “It looked like something out of a movie,” Blair said. “They had a guy dressed in a bomb suit like the ‘Hurt Locker.'” [4]
“This has been very traumatic for everyone,” Principal John Capozzi said. [5] No charges were brought against the student with the toy weapon, although authorities said he could face some kind of discipline from the school.
Some people would consider this as an “incredible coincidence,” but it is worth mentioning that the gun scare in Elmont comes as New York state legislators prepare to pass some of the strictest gun control laws in the country. As a matter of facts, Albany took up the legislative package, which expands the state’s existing ban on assault weapons and makes it illegal for a mentally ill person to own a firearm, following the Dec. 14 massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.
