Florida middle school student reports fake campus shooter day before Parkland anniversary – By Kate Feldman (New York Daily News) / Feb 13 2019
Dozens of police officers descended on a Florida middle school Wednesday morning, locking down the school and the neighboring elementary school, after a student reported a potential shooter on campus.
Except the student made it up.
An unidentified student at Farnell Middle School in Tampa told a teacher around 10 a.m. Wednesday that she had seen a man dress in black carrying a gun, according to the Tampa Bay Times.
The teacher told the school resource deputy, who filed an official report and began searching the campus.
Both Farnell and Bryant Elementary School were put on a lockout, which required all students and staff to stay in their classrooms during a campus-wide search.
Students were eventually moved out of the classrooms and into the auditorium after passing through metal detectors.
By around 1 p.m., they were allowed back to their desks.
A middle school student triggered a two-school lockdown when she lied about seeing a gunman on campus. (WTSP)
At some point during the day, Sheriff Chad Chronister said, the girl admitted that she had made the entire thing up.
“As a parent, it concerns me and is heart wrenching that 1,300 students just had to go in lockout, which means they had to barricade in place as (deputies) stormed the campus,” he said during a press conference, according to the Tampa Bay Times.
“That’s traumatic that these children had to go through that, and its absolutely intolerable.”
The girl faces a misdemeanor count of disrupting a school assembly and a felony charge of making a false report concerning the use of a firearm in a violent manner.
The false alarm comes just a day before the anniversary of the Parkland massacre that saw 17 people killed and another 17 injured after Nikolas Cruz opened fire at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Feb. 14, 2018.
Earlier Wednesday, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis announced that he has petitioned the state Supreme Court to appoint a grand jury to investigate how school security funding has been spent in Broward County — where the shooting occurred — and around the state.
