Dec 7, 2007 11:07 pm US/Eastern
Saugus High Closed, No Sports After Lockdown
SAUGUS (WBZ) ―
Saugus High School will be closed all weekend long, and all sporting events have been cancelled after police put the school under lockdown Friday, so officers could search for a gun.
A freshman told WBZ "police handled the job great" but that it was still "really scary."
It started around 10:45 a.m. when the superintendent's office received an anonymous call from someone claiming there was a gun inside the school.
"In this day and age you don't make the assumption it isn't, you have to react to it", said Saugus Schools Superintendent, Dr. Keith Manville.
Police then began the long process of evacuating students as a precaution.
WBZ's Peg Rusconi reports that officers expected to be searching the school until 9 or 10 P.M. Friday night. That's because there are 900 students at Saugus High and officers planned to search through everything: every bag, room, locker, and even every car in the parking lot, before they considered the school clear.
The freshman, who isn't being identified because of his age, e-mailed WBZ a personal account of how was frightening it was for students.
police handled the job great" but that it was still "really scary."
"I've never seen anything like this. I was in gym at the time, and all our personal things in the locker room and our own lockers are still at the school and we can't get them back until a later time. The police came into the gym seperated (sic) us by grades and searched our bags and patted us down before leaving the school."
The student also praised his teacher for keeping everyone updated.
"Since the town is usually uneventful, seeing all the news reporters, helicopters, police cars and ambulance was really scary. Coming up from the middle school, I've never seen anything like this."
Another student had this to say: "It was scary. Nobody knew what was going on. At first we thought it was a joke, but then we knew it was serious."
In fact, Saugus Senior, Brian Woodbury emailed WBZ telling us that students had no idea what was going on until they saw it on our website. Woodbury writes: "at about ten minutes to 11 Principal Diorio announced 'Attention all faculty, we are going into lock down mode, make sure all students are accounted for and lock all doors.'" "Where my class room was, we were not informed what was actually going on in the school. We were actually in the computer lab where we were constantly refreshing many news sites until we finally saw the breaking news banner on wbztv.com, we then knew what had happened."
Students were only allowed to leave with their cell phones. Jim Guerriero clutched his cell phone and waited for text messages from his 14-year old daughter. "All she said was the swat teams were in there", said Guerriero.
Woodbury said his parents and he did the same.
Thankfully, no one was been hurt.
Woodbury echoed other students praise for how authorities handled the situation, "It was a very different experience, the feeling really settled in when we saw the state police surrounding the building. It sank in even more when I was walking to the auditorium and saw an officer armed with what i believe was an M16 rifle, or in other words a BIG gun. Although the police presence and the nature of the situation can be scary and uncomfortable, it was comforting to see just how well Saugus and State police reacted to the situation. There was not one spot you couldn't see an officer from. Its nice to know that if something more serious were to occur that there would be a quick response."
Parents were notified of the lockdown through a system similar to a reverse 911 call.
Several of them came to the school, but were prevented by police from entering. Some text messaged their children while they were separated as well.
It was "very nerve wracking, makes you realize all the other schools it happens to. Hits right home," said Guerriero.
11th and 12th graders were taken by bus to a nearby American Legion Hall.
9th and 10th graders were moved to the Blessed Sacrament Church.
Parents picked up their children at those two locations.
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