Officer standing outside of the school doors.
Lockdown! The first time I heard the word lockdown in my life was while I was stationed in Germany. The Kaserne I was on was on lockdown for a reason that has been lost to the sands of time. All I remember was that I was not happy about it because it was on a Friday night, which meant I could not go to the Green Goose or Jerry's Keller Bar. What it meant was no one got on post, and no one got off post.
The next time I heard the word lockdown was on cable TV watching a documentary on prisons. The prisoners were on lockdown and were not allowed to leave their cells. Over the years I have heard this word become more and more predominant in the media, schools are locked down on on ever increasing basis. Today my son's school was locked down.
Squad cars blocking the entrance to the school parking lot
Today at one o'clock a coworker instant messaged me to ask where my son went to school. I told her Queen of Peace, she came back with, they are under
lockdown. Ten minutes later I received an e-mail from the school telling parents of the lockdown. Nice job local media - you reported this before parents were notified. Thanks for causing unnecessary panic.
I had to leave work early to pick my son up from school as they would not let him walk the three blocks to his grandparents house. When I arrived I was stopped at the driveway and was asked to show my ID. The police were only asking men for their IDs, no women were asked. When I walked up to the school I saw what is in the first photo in this post. A heavily armed police officer with an M-16.
The children were dismissed by grade, as my son was a "walker" he would not be dismissed until I signed him out. I had to wait for all other students to be released. Once he was released I walked into the school to see a very distraught priest and principal, both doing their best in a bad situation.
Squad car in front of the playground
Once I picked my son up he told me of his day. Students were not allowed to go from floor to floor. Armed officers were at every entrance to the school. This school serves 4K through 8th grade. The older kids were not scared (per my son), but the younger kids from what I heard while waiting to get my son were terrified. They had no idea why these people with guns were in their school.
While I blame the man the police are looking for for this incident I have to wonder what has become of our society where armed officers have to be stationed at the entryways to our schools.
Maybe we should not let every deranged nut out there have easy access to a gun. Of course the responsible gun owners out there will scream that their rights are being trampled. Granted, this man the police are looking for could have been a responsible gun owner, until he wasn't. I cannot imagine they would have had the large (and when I say large I mean almost thirty officers) police presence at my son's school today if this man were only carrying a knife or a baseball bat.
The point is, guns and violence have become far to prevalent in our society, maybe, just maybe it is time to look at the society we have and change it to one that we want. I don't ever want to go to my son's school and see this:
ever again.
4:10 PM PT: As more news comes out we are finding out that the man they are looking for has two children. At least one of them attends the school my son attends - my son knows this child.