Lockdown

I, along with plenty of other Scottsdale parents, had a scare today. My wife called at noon to tell me she heard on the radio part of a news story about "a shooting at a Scottsdale middle school." As the parent of a middle school child, all sorts of thoughts raced through my mind.

I was in the lab at work when she called. I immediately went to my office and jumped on AZCentral. The brief story there told me the middle school under lockdown was Cocopah, and the suspect was last seen on a baseball field. Not my child's school, but uncomfortably close--about .707 miles (estimated using the Pythagorean Theorem from distances taken from a Google map, further details would bore you to tears).

I called my daughter's school to find out if they locked down also. No.

Much later, I learned the "shots fired" were probably a slamming car door heard by a student. So a couple of thoughts come to mind. Was Cocopah overcautious? Did the school take the appropriate action? Should other nearby schools have been locked down?

To me, the school and police took the right actions. We've seen too many examples of kids in a classroom used for target practice. Kids in a classroom are defenseless, and the school administration has the responsibility to protect the kids in their care. It's a fact of life after Columbine that kids can get shot at school. I would much rather have the school locked down as a precaution than be sorry after a tragedy.

Crossposted from my AZCentral Blog, This Space Intentionally Left Blank.