'Our schools are not safe': El Camino Real Charter HS briefly locked down after reports of shooter
LOS ANGELES - El Camino Real Charter High School in Woodland Hills was temporarily placed on lockdown Tuesday following a report of a shooter on campus.
For parents and students alike, the situation was very scary.
"My son texted me there's a lockdown," one parent told FOX 11. "I think it's the worst day of my life," said another.
Shayna is a junior at El Camino Real. She told FOX 11 that the announcement came, saying "this is not a drill."
"We just pushed a bunch of desks up against the door," she said. "We were all kinda scared. We all just went into a corner. We all just huddled together in a corner."
Police said they received a report of a possible gunman on campus around 9 a.m., however, the Los Angeles Police Department said no threat was found at the campus and officers were working to clear the school. While there were reports of a possible gunman on campus were found out to be fake, for some parents it set off mental images of something worse.
"It's like living in a war zone to be afraid of getting shot every day," one mom said, another adding that the situation was "very upsetting."
Josh Petok has a daughter who goes to El Camino Real. He said Tuesday he received a text message from his daughter that no parent ever wants to get — "'Active shooter on campus. I love you and I love mom too.'"
"Our schools are not safe. They just aren't," Petok said when asked what he would tell his congressperson. "People have access to guns, and they shouldn't, and there's got to be better regulation for that."
Congressman Brad Sherman was on campus Tuesday for a student town hall. He said he was going to talk about things like gun control, but his talk was canceled because of the lockdown.
When asked to respond to Petok's comments, Sherman said, "We need to make our society better. We need to have control on guns. We need better mental health."
When he returns to Washington, Sherman said he will "try to convince some of my Republican colleagues to co-sponsor laws to reduce the size of magazines in case, God forbid, there is another shooter."
Though the reports of a shooter on the campus of El Camino Real were found to be fake, the fear for parents and students was very real. Some students and parents said the police response Tuesday was very quick, and that the school handled things well, while other parents thought quite the opposite.
Also in Los Angeles County Tuesday, Alhambra High School was briefly placed on lockdown after an anonymous threat, while police in Arcadia conducted an investigation on campus, though no further details on those situations were given.