CW // talk of school shootings
hey everyone so I’m currently at home, it’s like 10:30am and at this time I’d usually be at school but something happened. Today I was actually supposed to take a trip to a university and basically have a day to live the college experience but unfortunately that didn’t happen. My class that was supposed to go was heading for the bus, we were supposed to leave early in the school day. We see a cop car pass by with lights on and we think “oh there must be a car crash”, cop car sirens are not unusual to hear in my area so we thought nothing of it until I get a text from my friend saying that a cop has entered the school and some sirens went off in the school, they were in lockdown. I had confirmation of a lockdown when my teacher had tried to re-enter the building but was unable to. By this time all of us are on the bus and we’re looking out the window to try and figure out what’s happening. We start to see more and more cop cars coming. I’m texting my friends to figure out what’s going on and find out that there’s a threat of an active shooter in the school. My friend had sent me a previous text of “oh it’s just a drill” but then followed it up a minute later with “never mind, not a drill”. At this point we start seeing state patrol show up and we start to realize that ‘oh. This is probably a very serious situation’. I start to slightly panic because I have family members and friends at this school. I’m texting them frantically just trying to figure out what’s going on. Our bus starts to move and many of us start to yell “we can’t leave! We can’t leave!” Because a lot of us had people in there. We pass by and see just how many cars there are and a wave of dread and fear just passes through the entire bus. I felt my body fill with panic and I can hear myself struggling to breathe but I hadn’t registered that I was crying until someone said “who’s crying?” I started to sob and my friend had tried to hold onto me and calm me down but she also had family and friends in there and she inevitably gave into crying as well. Many people on the bus became hysterical, trying to figure out what exactly was happening inside. I managed to call my mom while in tears, she thought that maybe our bus got into an accident because of how hard I was crying. She tried to calm me down, my friend had actually taken my phone to talk to my mom because I couldn’t get any words through. At some point many of us calmed down but we still had no idea what was happening. Some people said that 1 person was shot while others said 2 people were shot. Someone said it was in the locker room while someone else said it was in a math class. The school ended up saying that it was a prank call but it was very hard to believe because our school has had quite a few shooting threats and taunts but it had never gotten to this level of fear. Not to mention when we had threats it was usually maybe one or two cop cars but there were cops and cameras, ambulance and firefighters on standby. Officers were strapped and had vests on, they were going around and knocking on doors and teachers had to show there badges. Apparently someone did get arrested. Our trip got canceled and we went back to the school once the lockdown was lifted. I actually had never been so glad to be back and to see people I knew standing at the front. I still don’t know whether is was a prank or not but it was fucked up either way. This only happened like 2 hours ago and I already just never want to go through that again. Stay safe everyone, have a good rest of your day.
