(WWJ) Garden City High School in Garden City went into lockdown Wednesday morning after a message threatening violence was received on students' phones.
A mother told WWJ Newsradio 950 that her son, who is a student at the school, called to tell her that they've barricaded the door to his classroom, and he and his classmates were hiding under their desks at 9:30 a.m.
Garden City Public Schools Superintendent Derek Fisher said a threat was "air dropped" to some students' phones, which prompted the lockdown.
"It was a threat, a very short sort of message saying that there was going to be an act of violence at approximately 9 a.m.," Fisher told WWJ's Mike Campbell. "I believe it was shooting-related."
Fisher said this is an ALICE lockdown, which means doors are secured and barricaded.
The lockdown was "out of an abundance of caution," Fisher added, and no one was injured.
Fisher said they take all threats seriously, and school officials are continuing to work with Garden City Police investigators to determine who sent the threat, from an Apple device.
This incident comes just over two weeks since four students were killed and seven students and a teacher were wounded in a shooting at Oxford High School in Oxford Township, which is about 60 miles from Garden City.
"Everybody's under sort of additional stress right now, experiencing the trauma that comes along with the Oxford event, being in our Southeast Michigan region." Fisher said. "...We're hypervigilant, and certainly hypersensitive right now."
School officials said no weapon was found, the lockdown was lifted, and students were released from their classrooms by around 2 p.m.
Reporting from the school, WWJ's Jon Hewett said parents remain on edge — despite relief that this was apparently not a credible threat.
"Parents here, like at other school where we've been reporting over the past couple of weeks, are extremely frustrated that they have to worry and then try to reach their kids, spend hours in a parking lot, leave work in some instances to get their children back," Hewett said. "But, again, grateful in the long run that this was just another exercise that was, unfortunately, is basically taking up time and resources from local law enforcement."
Doug, whose son is a junior at the school, said he believes that there needs to be tougher consequences for kids who post these threats.
The problem, he told Hewett: "No consequences. There has to be stern consequences, and as parents we've gotta sit down and keep on teaching our kids and saying, listen, this isn't a joke...this is real life."
"We have all of our Garden City resources up here; we've still got six miles, square miles of residents that need, maybe, assistance. And (police are) all tied up here for some nonsense. Thank God it's just nonsense this time, but who knows? They have to treat it the same every time, because we just never know."
Garden City students are frustrated, too. Early in the afternoon, several took to social media to report that they were being searched by police, and complaining about the process.
On Twitter, several students complained that the "cops are being horrible" or "disrespectful," to students, throwing their personal belongings around.
One student wrote: "Police should not be handling this situation like this, plus it’s up to the parents to actually pay attention to their kids..."
Another commented: "We’re scared as hell and they’re making it worse."
Stay tuned for WWJ for the latest on this story.
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