By: Macy Dennon and Bridie Beamish

Local and Culture Editors

Law enforcement arrived at Santa Cruz High School (SCHS) around 9:30 AM on Oct. 27 after receiving a call from an alleged teacher declaring an active shooter on campus and multiple victims. However, an investigation revealed no apparent perpetrator, allowing administrators and police to classify the threat as a hoax.

Though the school remained in lockdown to ensure the safety of staff and students, around an hour after the call the school proclaimed online, “We have confidence that it is a hoax. Multiple schools received a call from the same person. All students are safe. We are following safety protocols.” After the police cleared the campus around 1:00 PM, SCHS released students to their parents waiting at the nearby Depot Park. Mission Hills Middle School and Bayview Elementary School also entered lockdown, alongside an additional seven schools in the area sheltering in place. 

In reference to her daughter who attends SCHS, Jody Biehl declared, “She says she is OK, but I hear in her voice that she is shaken. I see it in her demeanor. Watching police march into your school with guns drawn, ready to open fire, is unnerving. Texting your friends to see if they are hurt is terrifying. So is sitting in silent fear for hours.” 

With a daughter at SCHS, LG AP US History teacher Tyler McGlashan expressed his momentary concern. After receiving a text from his daughter telling him the situation was a code red, he understood the true danger. He explained, “I know [what a code red] means… that there is actual evidence that a crime is happening on campus. So that is when I legit freaked out.” Mentally, the aftermath of the event had a long lasting impact on the students. McGlashan commented that his daughter and her friends “did not want to be alone.” He went on to say, “several of [my daughter’s] friends did not go to school the next day; she did. But yea, they were shaken up.”

Though law enforcement detained a subject whom they found in the middle of campus, they determined that the individual had no connection to the hoax call. Police made no arrests linked to this particular case. 

Los Gatos High School principal, Kevin Buchanan, sent out an announcement commenting on the unfounded calls. He asserted, “This situation serves as a good reminder of the importance of ‘If you see something, say something.’…LGSUHSD has implemented WeTip, a nationwide crime reporting system that ensures anonymity.” Going forward, he hopes that people in our community use the service to report incidences that provoke concern. Giving some words of advice, McGlashan suggested, “We are all much more likely to go through a threat that isn’t real than go through one that is, so there is some solace in that.” He later added, “We have got to be ready and we have to take the right action, whether it is real or not.”

(Sources: KSBW, Look Out News, Santa Cruz Sentinel)