Lakeland false alarm
Lakeland High School’s lockdown following a report of a suspicious sound meant all students would remain locked in their classes, no one was allowed in or out of the building, and the campus was sealed by law enforcement. (CRAIG NORTHRUP/Press)
CRAIG NORTHRUP/Press Law enforcement descended quickly on Lakeland High School Wednesday morning after a teacher reported what sounded like a gunshot around 10 a.m., prompting a lockdown. It was later determined the sound likely came from a nearby construction site.
CRAIG NORTHRUP/Press Crystal Hanson waited along the highway Wednesday morning, hoping to see her daughter, a senior at Lakeland High School. Hanson said the school’s lockdown stirred unwanted emotions, as she was a survivor of the 2017 Route 91 Harvest Root music festival in Las Vegas, where a gunman killed 58 and shot 413 more.
RATHDRUM — A teacher at Lakeland High School reported what sounded like a gunshot Wednesday morning, prompting a massive police presence that sent area schools into lockdown but uncovered no threat.
The call came in around 10 a.m. The Rathdrum Police Department assumed jurisdiction, according to dispatchers, promptly coordinating law enforcement from the Kootenai County Sheriff’s Office, Idaho State Police and other agencies to descend on the Rathdrum school while administrators placed Lakeland under lockdown. Lockdowns seal students off in their classrooms and prevent anyone from entering or leaving buildings.
Officers established a perimeter around the property and set up defensive positions outside the building before teams performed multiple sweeps of the area.
Meanwhile, parents lined up along Highway 41 just outside the Lakeland campus, waiting for word from the authorities, their children or both. Many had received calls or texts from their children, like Crystal Hanson, whose daughter is a senior at Lakeland.
“My daughter texted me and asked, ‘Is this real?’” Hanson said as she waited by Lakeland’s fenceline for an update from police. “I didn’t know what to tell her.”
Hanson said the morning’s false alarm felt all too real to her. The Hauser Lake resident survived the October 2017 Las Vegas shooting, where gunman Stephen Paddock murdered 58 concertgoers and injured 413 more from his Mandalay Bay perch. She said word of a possible school shooting rekindled unwanted feelings.
“This hit pretty close to home for me,” she said. “I wasn’t expecting that.”
By 11 a.m., the chances of a false alarm rose significantly.
Once it was determined no gun was fired, the all-clear was given, the lockdown was lifted, and parents like Hanson were able to pick their students up after going through a safety and identification protocol.
The school remained open for the rest of the day as classes resumed. Nearby schools in the district were also placed on a temporary “safety hold,” where school activity continued as usual but no students were allowed outside. Neighboring North Idaho STEM Charter Acadamy was also placed on a “lock-out” status for approximately 80 minutes, where the school’s perimeter was secured and all students remained inside while curriculum continued.
In a press conference, Lakeland Joint School District Assistant Superintendent Lisa Sexton praised the teacher and the first responders.
“Through our training, they’ve just been taught, ‘If you see something or hear something out of the ordinary, you don’t wait,’” Sexton said.
Law enforcement has found no evidence of a gunshot. Sexton speculated that a roofing tool used in a nearby construction site might have been responsible for the noise.
“The good news is, at no time were our students ever unsafe today,” she said.