Mar 18, 2009 12:17 pm US/Pacific
N. Bay School Lockdown After False Gun Claim
ROHNERT PARK (CBS 5 / KCBS / BCN) ―
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A police cruiser sits outside Rancho Cotate High School.
CBS
Rancho Cotate High School in Rohnert Park was placed on lockdown for more than two hours Wednesday because of a report of a student with a gun that officials later said turned out to be unfounded.
Rohnert Park police were called to the school, which is located at 5450 Snyder Lane, shortly after 9 a.m., and declared the all clear around 11 a.m.
The school let parents onto the campus around 11:30 a.m. to pick up their students if they desired, but district officials said classes would remain in session and encouraged students to stay at school.
Rohnert Park police Sgt. Art Sweeney said the California Highway Patrol dispatch center in Vallejo received a cell phone call at 9:12 a.m. saying that a male student was in a bathroom on the high school campus with a gun.
Cell phone 911 calls are typically routed through the Vallejo CHP center, and Sweeney said the call was made from a pay-as-you-go cell phone, preventing authorities from tracing it.
Rohnert Park police treated the report as credible and immediately contacted the high school, which was placed on lockdown around 9:15 a.m., Sweeney said.
A swarm of officers responded, searching the campus bathrooms, but Sweeney said no gun was found.
Nervous parents gathered outside in a parking lot following word of the incident.
Dan Karlstad, whose 13-year-old daughter is a freshman at the school, was upset police hadn't searched classrooms in addition to the bathrooms.
"I don't want my daughter wandering around in there when there
might be a gun," Karlstad said. "They have not searched everywhere."
Connie Skelton, whose son and daughter attend Rancho Cotate, said her daughter, who is a sophomore, told her via text message there was a rumor circulating among students earlier this morning that someone had committed suicide in a bathroom.
Skelton said the California High School Exit Exam was being administered at the school Wednesday and speculated that the test may have been related to the 911 call.
"It sounds like someone didn't want to take the test," she said.
Cotati-Rohnert Park Unified School District Superintendent Barbara Vrankovich confirmed that the exit exam was being administered at the school Tuesday and Wednesday.
She said the district was reporting to the state that there was a testing irregularity. It was unclear whether and when the test would be readministered.
The nearby Cross & Crown Lutheran School for kindergarteners and preschoolers at 5475 Snyder Lane was also placed on lockdown during the high school incident, police said.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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