Threat of mass shooting at Ceres school ‘unsubstantiated,’ police say. Campus searched

Police and other emergency units responded just before noon Monday to a report of a gun threat at a Ceres junior high school, prompting a lockdown of the campus.

Officers who rushed to the Cesar Chavez Junior High School campus went from room to room and determined it was a false report, officials said.

Saying “everything is OK,” law enforcement began letting parents onto the campus at about 12:45 p.m. Parents who had gathered outside the campus out of concern for their children waited in a long line as school officials went through protocols to check out students to go home.

Ceres Unified School District released a statement Monday afternoon, saying that students and staff are safe. “Police conducted a thorough search of the Cesar Chavez Junior High School campus and found no evidence of a credible threat,” school district spokeswoman Beth Parker Jimenez wrote in an email.

Jimenez said Ceres police dispatchers received a call reporting a gun threat against Cesar Chavez Junior High School. The school was immediately locked down as multiple agencies responded to the campus.

District officials also placed nearby La Rosa Elementary School on a precautionary lockdown.

In a news release, Ceres police said the call to dispatchers came from an unknown male indicating he was at Cesar Chavez school and was planning to commit a mass shooting.

Multiple agencies responded with a significant police presence and imposed precautions including a lockdown to protect students, staff and citizens while the incident was investigated.

“Officers thoroughly searched the campus, followed all leads and determined the threat to be unsubstantiated,” the Ceres police news release said.

No one was harmed during the incident. Although the threat of a school shooting was not substantiated, police are still looking into the source of the threat, the news release said.

Marza Nowaya said he went to the campus on Eastgate Boulevard on information there was an active shooter, “but they told me it was just a false report.” Nowaya and other family members left the campus with two students.

The Ceres school district said it treats any threat against a school campus with utmost seriousness. Social-emotional support services were made available for students at Cesar Chavez and La Rosa Elementary. Some students leaving Cesar Chavez school appeared to be distressed and were hugging parents.

“We appreciate the rapid response of our local law enforcement and the support of families as we prioritized students and staff safety during today’s incident,” Jimenez said.

Ceres police are investigating the false report made to dispatchers. Anyone with information about the incident is asked to call a Ceres police detective at 209-538-5729.

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