GILROY
– A crowd of about 50 to 60 parents and Gilroy High School
students waited anxiously at the northeast corner of Tenth and
Princevalle streets Friday morning for police to release students
who were locked in classrooms for about three hours after a student
threatened to shoot a teacher.
GILROY – A crowd of about 50 to 60 parents and Gilroy High School students waited anxiously at the northeast corner of Tenth and Princevalle streets Friday morning for police to release students who were locked in classrooms for about three hours after a student threatened to shoot a teacher.
Across the street, about a dozen parents waited, including Christine and Ed Muñoz, who held each other. They were waiting for more than an hour, and in that time heard at least four different rumors speculating why law enforcement, armed with assault rifles, was circling inside the campus gates.
“I need a hug,” Christine Muñoz said. “You never know if it’s going to be another Columbine, and you never know if it’s going to be your daughter that’s going to get killed.”
Later that afternoon, police arrested one 17-year-old boy and two 17-year-old girls in connection with the incident in which a girl called 9-1-1 and threatened to shoot teacher Diana Burkholder, prompting officers to lock down the school, police said.
Many parents sighed audibly with relief as students poured out of classrooms and quickly swarmed the front and rear gates of the high school.
Parent Annie Kranz waited for a call from her daughter, Chelsea Glasnapp. While worried about how Glasnapp was handling the situation, Kranz took comfort in the quick response from Gilroy police and other law enforcement agencies.
“I’m very happy about the police department taking action, whether it’s true or not,” Kranz said. “They’re not leaving it up to chance, they’re treating it like a real situation.”
Moments later, Kranz’s cell phone rang and she walked down the street so her daughter would be able to see her from the classroom window.
After the lockdown, classes continued for the few students who chose to stay, but most students left campus, stopping on their way out to trade stories, check in with friends and allay their parents’ fears. The frenzied cell phone calls students made throughout the morning from inside locked and darkened classrooms continued as what appeared to be the entire student body milled around the main quad.
Just a few minutes prior, inside the classrooms, the mood was strikingly different, students said.
Those who were in Ashley Dorsey’s first period class were “hysterical,” she said. Thoughts of Saturday night’s senior prom were replaced by anxiety.
“Everyone was worried and scared and just didn’t know what to do,” she said.
While they waited inside locked and darkened classrooms for nearly three hours, the inconvenience of the situation weighed on students’ empty stomachs and full bladders.
“Girls had to pee in the sink” in a woodshop classroom supply closet, freshman Victoria Barnett said.
Students knew from the moment the lockdown began Friday morning that the situation was serious.
“After they didn’t let us out for brunch and then my teacher didn’t know anything about (what was going on), it was very clear it wasn’t a drill,” Dorsey said.
Another student said he and his classmates also were preparing to leave for the school’s 10-minute brunch break when they learned of the situation. The sight of law enforcement officers outside his classroom brought to mind the deadly shooting at Colorado’s Columbine High School in 1999.
“We started heading out for brunch and then saw a bunch of police officers with guns telling us to get back in class,” junior Rich Young said.
“I was pretty worried, and I wasn’t sure what was going on,” said Justin Rodriguez, a sophomore. “I called my mom, and she told me to pray and stuff.”
Barred in classrooms since 8 a.m. with little to no information, teachers and students flipped on the TV news or searched the Web for updates on what was happening outside.
“They didn’t tell us anything the whole time,” Rodriguez said.
Filling the information void were rumors spread via cell phone calls and text messages between students in classrooms and family members waiting anxiously outside the school.
After the lockdown and reunion between parents and students, many were relieved the tense situation did not escalate into a deadly one, but the threat was startlingly close to home.
Youth Pastor Mike Zukowski of South Valley Community Church waited at GHS’ front gate to talk with students.
“Most of them were OK, they were just in shock. They didn’t know what was going on,” he said. “It’s just a variety of reactions, but they had been in the classrooms long enough that I think they talked it out amongst themselves.”
One interesting discussion happening inside classrooms, he said, centered around what students would do if a gunman burst in with the intent to kill.
“They were planning in the class that if something happened like in Columbine, that they would rush the person,” Zukowski said.
Most students said, because the lockdown turned out to be largely uneventful, they didn’t expect to feel much differently about school as they entered campus this morning.
“None of us got hurt, so …” said Jonathan Roorda, a sophomore. “It was just scary for a while but now it’s the same.”
Staff Writer Eric Leins contributed to this report.
