Newsrag.com
Manhasset High School in lockdown
BY JENNIFER SINCO KELLEHER AND MATTHEW CHAYES
1:52 PM EDT, May 29, 2008
The Manhasset school district sent a message to parents' phones and e-mail accounts Thursday morning informing them that Manhasset High School had been placed on lockdown after a student reported seeing two other students with a gun, according to district officials.
According to the district's Web site, the message read, in part: "We are currently investigating a report by a student observing two students with a gun in the boy's lavatory at around 8:50 a.m."
"The situation is calm."
Nassau County Det. Sgt. Anthony Repalone, giving reporters a briefing on an athletic field at Manhasset High School, said that shortly before 9 a.m. in a boys' bathroom, an eighth-grade boy saw three other older students -- all male -- talking together. One of them was holding what the eighth-grader thought was a gun. The student went to school administrators.
Repalone said the student only saw the older students from behind.
"We believe the information we got was credible," Repalone said.
Repalone said 1,300 students are enrolled in the school, which includes grades 7-12.
At some point this afternoon, he said, all the students will be evacuated from the school and the school will be thoroughly searched.
The message noted that parents are not permitted to enter the building and it discouraged phone calls to the school because that would "impede the progress of the investigation at hand."
Cathy Merrick, an assistant principal's secretary, said dismissal is scheduled for 3:08 p.m. but it is not clear yet whether students will get to leave then.
Trisha Bedell, another secretary in the administrative office, said the lockdown went into effect at about 9:30 a.m.
"Everyone is locked in wherever they were," she said. "No one is in the halls."
She said the mood is calm. "There's no panicking," she said. "Everyone is safe ... The only complaint now is the bathroom."
Shortly before noon, several dozen anxious parents had gathered outside the school, beyond the police perimeter set up there.
William Shine, assistant to the superintendent, emerged from the building to talk to parents and answer questions for about five minutes.
Shine said an eighth-grader told the principal Thursday morning that he had seen an older student from the back and saw what seemed like a gun. The eighth-grader said he thought he would recognize the student if he saw him again, according to Shine.
Shine said police have not found a gun or the student allegedly carrying it.
Referring to the eighth-grader, Shine said, "He is naturally upset."
Shine allayed some parental concerns, telling them, "The children are able to use the bathroom. There is no problem there."
He also said students taking various medications were receiving them as scheduled.
Donna DiCarlo, whose 16-year-old daughter Victoria is a 10th-grader, said she found out about the scare via the district-wide alert system. She said she came to the school because she figured there was no better place to be and because, "God forbid, the worst-case scenario."
Aline Khatchadourian, a Manhasset school board member and mother of a 10th- and seventh-grader, said she has been receiving text messages from her children.
"They've been texting us that they're OK," she said. "They've been there since second period." To
pass the time, she said, her sophomore daughter finished all her homework.
Laurie Spampinato, mother of a seventh-grader, said she's received text messages from her son and spoke to him via cell phone. "He sounded fine," she said. "It didn't sound like any kids in the background were panicked, either."
When she heard the building was in lockdown, she sent him a text simply asking, "Is all OK," not wanting to worry him in case he hadn't heard about the report of a gun. In typical 13-year-old style, she said, he responded, "Yeah."
Spampinato said she was staying at home, waiting for word, while other parents were heading to the school. "There's absolutely nothing you can do from there. It just causes more confusion," she said. "In situations like this, no good comes of panicking."
But when she first heard that police were on scene and helicopters were flying overhead, she felt a wave of worry. "I think I had to kind of catch my breath," she said. "My gut says that everything is going to be OK."
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