Frantic parents surrounded a Brooklyn high school Wednesday after a student reported seeing someone with a gun and a lockdown was ordered at the school. Erica Byfield reports.
Frantic parents surrounded a Brooklyn high school Wednesday after a student reported seeing someone with a gun and a lockdown was ordered at the school.
Inside Fort Hamilton High School in Bay Ridge on Wednesday, many students were underneath their desks, texting family and fearing someone was walking the school's hallways with a gun.
"They were saying that we were on a 'hard lockdown' because there's someone in the school with a gun," one student told her family over the phone.
Shortly before 11 a.m., a 15-year-old student called 911 after she thought she saw someone in a stairwell with a gun. The school was placed on "temporary lockdown," a spokesperson for the Department of Education said.
As the lockdown unfolded, hundreds of parents were on edge outside the school, terrified as they saw police in tactical gear patrolling the property. Some paced as others sent worried texts back and forth to their children.
A chant of "Let them out! Let them out!" began at an entrance to the building as loved ones worried about the safety of those inside. Some of the students could be seen hanging out windows.
There was no confirmed sighting of a gun and no injuries were reported, police said. Officers searched the school floor by floor, but didn't find any gunman.
After some tense moments, the students were released from the building and there was a rush of emotion from parents as they embraced their children.
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"I couldn't let go," one mother said of the embrace she gave her daughter when it was all over.
"I just want to hug him, you know, give him a big kiss," David Pantaleno said of his son.
Kids recounted what it was like to be inside, hiding under desks.
"My teacher, she had to put like desks in front of the door," one boy said. "And then we heard a lot of police sirens."
Most of the students left the school by 1 p.m. Police said there was no active shooter threat.
