School Shooting

Well my daughter’s school was involved in a school shooting incident today. Sad the 8th grade shooter lost his life. Lucky he was the only casualty. This was in Mt. Horeb, WI School District.
My daughter is a 7th grade teacher at Mt. Horeb. All the schools went in to lock down around 11 AM as the shooter tried to enter the school. The school Liaison Officer ended up shooting the rifle carrying student. She was locked in her room with students from 11AM till almost 8PM. The threat was over around 1PM but Police kept everyone in lock down till all info and evidence was gathered. They were escorted to use the rest room once during the whole ordeal.
Thank God prayers from my wife and I were answered and she is safe.

What a situation- I can’t believe they kept them locked down that long! I’m very happy your daughter, students, and the rest of staff were not harmed and thank god your district has a high quality SRO on staff since so many districts have cut the positions.

I saw that on the news. I’m glad everybody is safe and the threat taken down. Sad that a 14 year old had his life end in this way.

Scary deal especially when it hits close to home. Glad your daughter and others can come home to their families.

I always worry more the later things get in the school year as we transition into summer. Unfortunately this is the sad reality we live with

Jesus H Christmas this sh*t is beyond out of control. This is related to but also beyond *just* politics- mental health(as a blanket term) has gone way downhill in recent years. People have lost their minds and feel more depressed/polarized/ostracized than they have in a long time.

Every other day is a shooting or some other act of wicked violence, it seems.

God help us. Sigh.

And mX- glad your little girl was ok.

8th grade?? Wtf

In todays world in can happen at any place any time. So glad that your daughter is ok. I hope it wasn’t too traumatic for her.

Locked down for 8 hours?! Let em go home after the threat is neutralized for cryin’ out loud.

gim wrote:

Locked down for 8 hours?! Let em go home after the threat is neutralized for cryin’ out loud.

I’m guessing they making sure there were no other threats. Better safe than sorry.

MX glad your daughter and all the other students are safe. Scary situation and one that happens far too often these days. Thank goodness someone acted swiftly and took the threat out.

Crazy world we are living in today, this crap is more than out of hand. Glad to hear your daughter is ok, sorry they all had to go through that. I get they want to do an investigation but keeping them all in lock down that long seems extreme.

The lockdown time seems absurd. Sounds like the local authorities aren’t very confident in their duties.

Thanks everyone for your concern. Talked to the daughter after she got home. She will be fine. She had the student in her class last year. A very good kid and never would of guessed he would do something like this.
I thought the same thing about keeping them in lock down. Clear a hallway and get the kids outside to their parents. I wasn’t there so maybe it was the right thing to do.

THe lockdown may have been necessary depending how the school is laid out because they may not have been able to easily clear the rooms and deem everything safe. The old pleasantview school in Sauk Rapids was a disaster and if something ever happened in it there would have definitely been mass casualties because of how it was laid now. Now the new one is much more secure. I believe the push of a button locks down barricades in the hallways to stop someone from navigating anywhere. They can only enter the front entrance which requires ringing in from the office. How could someone get a long gun in a school? That is just crazy to me.

gim wrote:

Locked down for 8 hours?! Let em go home after the threat is neutralized for cryin’ out loud.

I agree. Seems like someone needs a slap on the back of the head for that. Without being there is all speculation but 7 hrs after the threat was neutralized seems crazy to me.

I hate to criticize law enforcement but I would agree that 8 hours seems very excessive to keep all those people. If it was needed to ensure things were 100% secure then yes, by all means, check for additional shooters, verify and clear the whole property. And I do understand the need for crime scene preservation but I would think there would be a controlled way to get everyone out.

My oldest is in kindergarten this year and last fall while test firing my hunting gun he just casually mentioned something about a lockdown drill they did at school. I asked him what they did and he mentioned the turn the lights off, go to one part of the room, principal goes to classrooms to check on them, etc. Just thinking about all that with my kid was like a kick in the gut.

Local news is stating that the lockdown took that long because the shooting was outside and they needed to complete their investigation before allowing people the walk thru the area, maybe the area was big and they had to do the investigation at multiple spots and not just the final spot.

That school officer likely saved a lot of lives, but it would be horrible to take the life of an 8th Grader, not matter what the circumstances, and that will weigh on that officer for a lifetime. Glad your Daughter is OK, MX

I listened to the scanner audio as it was going on. Kid was dead on the sidewalk, had the bomb squad xraying him and clearing his pockets as he had what looked to be suspicious objects in them.

I get keeping the scene secure, but you rope off the area, once its deemed safe put a tent over the body, take kids out other doors not near the scene. It doesn’t take 8 hours to clear the bomb squad. If I recall it was about 2:00pm the EOD stated his pockets were safe.

Whoever made the decision to hold everyone that long needs to be questioned/investigated why. The trauma for those kids will be lifelong and holding them longer doesn’t help.

Well I’m glad I’m not the only one here that questions why there is a need for an 8 hour lock down after the threat is addressed. Clear a hallway and a path to safety instead of locking kids up in a classroom for that long. That is borderline ridiculous. Not only is it a dramatic incident, but now everyone has to think about it in a room for another 8 hours too.

There sure are a lot of experts here about how the situation was handled. I’m curious how many people in this thread have been involved in a school shooting? Heck, how many have been in charge of a school before, dealt with a crime scene, or even worked with kids on a daily basis, etc?

The district has an enrollment of over 2400 kids. Add to that 170 teachers, cooks, custodians, administrators, dozens of aides, visitors, volunteers, nurses, etc. and you could easily come up with close to 2600+ people that needed to be accounted for, students later signed out by guardians, some interviewed, and evaluated for various things (kids). There’s also the obvious possibility that this wasn’t planned “alone” or that other kids could be armed. That same staff that was traumatized had to manage media coming as well. Some of the kids don’t go home to good situations and likely have their own mental health struggles that the school is the best suitor for handling. Every single kid needs to be signed out by a guardian not just turned loose and I cannot imagine being accountable for that.

It sounds like the district had a plan that was implemented and they had done ALICE trainings that coordinated with local law enforcement. Despite how angry/scared parents were it seems like the kids were kept safe, fed, comforted with counselors, therapy dogs, etc. and organized in a time of absurd chaos and fear.

Kudos to everyone involved. Lives were saved. Kids were comforted. Could things have moved faster to get everyone reunited? Sure. Did people learn what went wrong? Probably. That’s pretty hard to practice or be skeptical about though in hindsight. I hope the people in the field who worked in this tragic situation disregard the questioning keyboard warriors all over social media. Many of them couldn’t teach a dog to bark.

I will say right up front that I do not know the particulars of the situation being discussed.

But, what would the comments on here be if the school officials and law enforcement would have let the kids go before the situation was safe and there were additional injuries or causalities?

It seems that law enforcement is damned if you do and damned if you don’t. I am glad the other students were able to go home, even if it was late in the evening.

Buffalo Fishhead

Well we all saw how the Uvalde situation worked out where Law Enforcement didnt immediately react and it led to a bunch more deaths. I am sure it was very stressful for the staff and the kids, but its far better to be more cautious and alive than the obvious alternative. They probably had no idea whether there was another person working with him that could have been inside. This makes me so sad because my youngest is a 8th grader.

Kudo’s to not letting the shooter in the building. However it’s still very sad that a young life was lost without ever knowing what life was really about.

Still a lot details to come out of this case. But I’m 100% behind any LE official shooting first and asking question later in a situation where anyone is seen brandishing a firearm on any school property.

-J.

Dutchboy wrote:

However it’s still very sad that a young life was lost without ever knowing what life was really about.

Isnt that the truth! Ive read that there were no signs of this. Something triggered him, something, there had to be signs. I never believe that when I hear it said. There is always something.
There was a young girl from Sartell, very bright, excellent athlete had great parents and one day she just decided to kill herself. There is always something going on. Kids of that age go through stuff. Its hard being a teenager. Back in my dad you had a beef with someone you settled it after school at the Catholic Church parking lot. Not with weapons.

Wow, that’s way too close to home. Glad your daughter and everyone else is safe.

Just to be clear. My daughter received an all clear/no more threat at 12.59PM and a “just waiting for busses” at 1:01PM. So the wait till after 7PM seemed odd to me.
Thanks everyone for your thoughts and concerns.

Jon Jordan wrote:

Still a lot details to come out of this case. But I’m 100% behind any LE official shooting first and asking question later in a situation where anyone is seen brandishing a firearm on any school property.

-J.

100%

MX I’m glad to hear that everyone but the person bringing a gun to a school is fine.

Did the kid actually shoot any rounds or was he just carrying the rifle? Why didn’t he go inside, was he just standing outside running his mouth?