School Lockdowns in Four States Follow Va. Tech Tragedy
Schools lockdowns have occurred in four different states when bomb scares and threats followed Monday's Virginia Tech shootings.
Amid increased sensitivity that resulted from the recent tragedy in Virginia, other people have used the situation to terrorize three universities and two public schools located in Texas, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Louisiana. School officials have taken the circumstances seriously since they do not want a repeat of the Virginia Tech rampage, which took the lives of 33 students.
"We always want to err on the side of caution in a situation like this," explained David Boren, president of the University of Oklahoma, in a statement.
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Among the three affected universities was St. Edward's University, a Catholic school located in Austin, Texas.
Administrators uncovered a note in an unspecified location which revealed a bomb threat on its campus on Tuesday. The details of the note were reported to be nonspecific, but school officials still cancelled the morning and afternoon classes and evacuated all the buildings for security reasons.
Students were allowed to return to the buildings when no explosive was found within the vicinity.
The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga had a similar evacuation that lasted two hours when a telephone bomb threat was made Tuesday morning.
After the bomb squad searched the campus buildings, they reported no bomb, and individuals were allowed to return.
Also today, the University of Oklahoma raised alert when an unknown man arrived on campus with a suspicious object. Later, the man was identified and found to be only carrying an umbrella.
A high school and a middle school were also stirred up Tuesday morning, when a student in Bogalusa, La., received a threatening note from a stranger while on his way to private Bowling Green School in Franklinton, La. Parents immediately picked up their children, who were asked to evacuate the school premises.
The suspect note made a direct reference to the Virginia Tech incident and warned that "If you think that was bad, then you haven't seen anything yet."
A 53-year-old man was eventually arrested by authorities as being the author of the note.
Some of the schools have noted that their reaction is not at all affected by the recent rampage in Virginia. The administrators explained that they would have taken the precautions at all times, regardless of the recent tragedy.
