Alex Urosevic/Sun Media
The Police said it may have been a camera tripod sticking out instead of a firearm..But it is comforting to know that the Standard Procedures was executed to perfection just in case it maybe a real firearm in the future..
By ROB LAMBERTI AND JONATHAN JENKINS, SUN MEDIA
(Alex Urosevic/Sun Media)
OAKVILLE -- Thousands of Sheridan College students were locked down after a teacher and eight students thought they saw a gun sticking out of a person's knapsack.
But after almost three hours of huddling in darkened, locked rooms or under desks at the Trafalgar Rd. campus south of Upper Middle Rd., Halton police believe the protruding weapon was a camera tripod.
College President Dr. Robert Turner said a professor and some of his students thought they saw a "long tubular object" sticking out of the man sack and feared it was a firearm.
The lock down was announced by a school-wide public address system. Gordon said police acted as if they were dealing with an armed man and classes were cleared in a methodical way.
Art student Brittany Stewart said her teacher sprung into action after hearing the lock down announcement. "She automatically turned everything off, told us to be quiet and she closed the door and locked it," Stewart said. "I think one of the other students put a chair in front of it. By the time this happened, I finally realized what was going on and they secured the room."
She said she had trouble believing the announcement stating the lock down was not a drill. "And they repeated, 'This is not a drill,' I was dumbstruck," Stewart said. "It was kind of scary."
Banking student Jamie Basil said it was her teacher and fellow students who saw the man they thought was armed.
Kandise Barron was so spooked by the episode, she and a classmate hid in a closet for 45 minutes after two police officers rattled the door and told them they could come out, the glass-blowing program student said.
"They asked us to come out but we didn't come out," Barron said. "The mood was a little bit untrusting. It was quite frightening, actually."
Barron had been working on a project in a noisy studio and never heard any announcement about the lock down, when another student came in and hurriedly turned out the lights.
Read or see it here or here
All Schools, from Kindergarten to University are doing regular drills for emergency especially if it involves firearms spotted in the vicinity..Police and Special Forces are immediately dispatch to deal with the emergency and if involves like the incident described in the articles above, won't declare the all-clear until the whole campus is searched and found safe..may take hours as the one above, even in a false alarm..always better safe than sorry later..
