The student arrested at Shadow Ridge High School on Wednesday made a comment about having a gun and “going to take care of business,” which prompted the hard lockdown according to Clark County School District Police.
Lt. Bryan Zink said the student arrested is a 16-year-old in 10th grade who made the comment in a bathroom. The classmate then notified officers on campus.
“So not knowing what he meant and then he also made like some kind of gesture towards his backpack, which was enough to alarm the student who alerted it to our police officers,” Lt. Zink said.
CCSDPD and partner agencies responded to the threat after 10:15 a.m. and placed the school on a hard lockdown, which happens when there is a report of a person on campus with a firearm. A hard lockdown requires a school to lock all doors and students hide until they’re released.
Police eventually found the teen, took him into custody and charged him with assault and making terroristic threats. No injuries were reported. The hard lockdown lasted for more than an hour.
Some parents questioned the amount of time that lapsed to try and reunite with their children during the ordeal. However, Lt. Zink said clearing the campus is a process which includes releasing all students at the same time.
“When we put a school into a lockdown, we don't take that lockdown up until we know that, that threat has been unsubstantiated or has been made unfounded,” Lt Zink said. “So, our officers searched every single room in that building with Metro and the other agencies that responded. Of course, that's going to take some time and then you add on the fact that we needed to wait for the buses to get there so that we could release all the students at the same time. It just adds to the time which I know is very frustrating but believe me, we do all this with the safety of the students, the safety of the staff in mind.”
Lt. Zink called the response by CCSDPD and partner agencies “casebook.”
“If anything bad ever happens, or even when these rumors these things go up that just to show you how serious that we take this.”
CCSD Police rely on students, faculty, and community sharing tips with officers about a potential danger or threat on campus because metal detectors are not a consideration at the moment for campuses because of costs and logistics.
“If we do it at one school, we have to do it at all 356 of our schools,” Lt. Zink said. “All those entrances have to be monitored 24 hours a day, seven days a week once those are put into place. Then just the sheer amount of time that it would take to get 3,000 students into a school for that day and then if they left, they came back, everybody would have to go through that same single point of entry.”
While police did not find a gun at Shadow Ridge High School on Wednesday, officers have confiscated 28 handguns on CCSD campuses during the 2022-2023 school year. That is two more than at the same time last year.