A Big City Day

Talk about a slap of reality. Last Friday was a bit stunning. I had no idea anything was going on until Rob came home at about 4:20 and headed right for the TV.

"There's going to be a news conference or something on at 4:30," he said.

"About what?"

"There's something going on down at the schools. There are helicopters all over and police cars. The helicopters were there this morning when I left. "

What???

We still don't know if it was a beyond-stupid prank or some seriously sick person, but on Friday there was a bomb threat at one of the schools. The kids were evacuated to another nearby school. A few hours later, another call came in saying there was a sniper on top of a school. That prompted 4 schools to go into lock-down for about 4 hours. Parents weren't being told much, nor were the kids. The police seem to have handled it well, far as we can tell from the sidelines. They didn't want to release information during the incident that might have endangered the kids. They decided it was better to take the heat of a disgruntled public after the fact rather than risk someone being hurt or killed. Rather sane if you ask me.

No bombs or snipers were found. No evidence of anything suspicious either, it seems. The only thing they have is two 911 calls. It was a non-event, discounting the four local, state, and federal agencies, news crews, and helicopters. It was the lead story on the 5:00pm news but by 10:00pm it was barely before the first commercial.

We have several friends that are connected to the schools -- teachers, bus drivers, parents with kids. To this community, Friday was anything but a non-event. Hopefully in short time, it will pass, this shaken feeling of security and optimism. I guess we'll find out eventually if we are going to have to accept the reality of having big city problems like so many other towns in 2007. I think most of us are praying it turns out to be an obviously troubled kid who didn't understand the enormity of his or her "joke." I don't know when it happened, but it makes my heart sick that schools aren't a safe place anymore. A second-grader just shouldn't have to know what "lock-down" means.