Explosive devices prompt CHS lockdown
<p>Detectives and officers with the Coeur d'Alene Police department look over an area where one of three explosives were detonated at Coeur d'Alene High School after keeping the campus on lockdown for over an hour on Thursday. The devices were believed to have been detonated sometime Wednesday evening. No injuries were reported and the incident is under investigation.</p>
COEUR d'ALENE - The sports fields and sidewalks outside Coeur d'Alene High School sat eerily quiet for an hour Thursday morning as city police officers searched the campus, inside and out.
Authorities placed the school under lockdown just after 10 a.m. following a custodian's discovery of what appeared to be remnants of an explosive device in the area of the concession stand near the north entrance to the football field.
"It looked like it had been exploded overnight," said Coeur d'Alene Police Sgt. Christie Wood.
While students were not allowed to leave their classrooms, or to exit the school building, uniformed officers swept the school building and grounds. Officers also walked through the student parking lot, looking in vehicle windows.
The sweep uncovered remnants of two more similar devices, also near the football field, but at the south entrance.
All three devices had been previously detonated.
Wood said there was no evidence of property damage and no injuries were reported.
Once police determined the grounds were safe, school administrators called off the lockdown at 11:15 a.m., and students were allowed to leave their classrooms and the building.
Cody Johnson, 17, headed out to the parking lot to check on his car.
Johnson said when the lockdown was ordered, he initially thought it was a joke. Once he realized the gravity of the situation, the senior said he was concerned, but never felt like he was in danger.
"Our school did a good job locking down," Johnson said.
He has no idea who might have detonated the devices on the school grounds.
He then smiled sheepishly, and admitted, "We were making jokes about other teams bombing our football field."
A screen of Wednesday's incoming calls for police assistance shows a 911 report was received at 7:39 p.m. from a custodian working at the high school who reported hearing what sounded like an explosion. According to the city police department's press release on the incident, officers responded, but did not have specific information about the location of a possible explosion, and did not see any evidence that one had occurred.
Coeur d'Alene Superintendent Hazel Bauman reported by e-mail that district administrators were unaware of the Wednesday evening incident.
"Certainly had we known about this last night we would have swept the building prior to school starting and would have avoided a lockdown," Bauman stated. "We will debrief with the Coeur d'Alene Police Department to make sure we did everything possible to ensure student safety, which at this point I believe we did."
The three devices were described by police as being constructed using several rolls of red, paper cap gun tape wrapped into a ball shape and secured with black electrical tape. Two of the devices were softball-sized, and one was the size of a soccer ball.
They did not appear to have been designed with the intention of causing serious damage or injuries, Wood said, since there were no items intended as projectiles, like nails, placed inside the devices.
The police department's press release indicates the devices may have been put together with a firework inside of each to act as a detonator when lit.
Wood said an investigation will continue, and surveillance footage will be reviewed.
"Hopefully, someone will come forward and say that someone was bragging about this," Wood said.