Photo courtesy of the Seattle Times.
Summary: Police responded to a report of gunfire at a community college in Des Moise, Washington.
On Friday, police responded to a shooting threat at a community college in Washington state, and authorities said in the afternoon that there was no proof that there were weapons fired.
“The emergency condition is over and law enforcement have given the all clear,” Highline Community College stated on its Facebook page.
After the threat, the Des Moines, Washington campus was closed for the remainder of the day. In the morning, there were reports of gunfire, which caused the school to go on lockdown.
Puget Sound Regional Fire Authority’s captain, Kyle Ohashi, said that police found no evidence of gun shell casings or holes in the wall that would provide proof of a shooting.
Another official said that students’ may have heard sounds like gunshots and that they are unsure yet of what those sounds were.
“We have multiple reports of what could have happened, for instance, fireworks, or other things like that,” DPD Chief George Delgado said to NBC News. “If this is something that somebody thought was funny in light of Florida and wanted to create some hysteria, well, it’s not appreciated.”
The Florida mention that Delgado referenced was the massacre in Parkland, Florida this week. On Wednesday, a teenager entered his former high school and killed almost 20 students and adults with an automatic weapon. The aftermath of the Parkland shooting is that the nation’s schools are on high alert, and the Washington Post stated that the news of a possible gunman at Highline “triggered fear.”
At noon, authorities cleared the area, and before that, students had posted pictures of themselves hiding in offices or being barricaded in classrooms.
Jarod Kasner, a commander with the Kent Police Department told The Washington Post that no injuries have been reported.
“We haven’t had any indication of a shooting, or a shooter, or injuries,” Kasner said.
After the tragedy in Parkland, a nationwide debate ensued on gun control, school safety, and the effectiveness of active shooter drills. The shooter, Nikolas Cruz, 19, was apprehended by police, and according to CNN, he confessed to the crime.
So far this year, there have been six school shootings in the United States, according to USA Today. The publication stated that they did not count instances where a gun was brought to school and not fired or if a gun was fired but no student or personnel was shot. A broader definition of school shooting would make the number 18, according to Everytown for Gun Safety.
Highline is a community college with almost 17,000 students. Founded in 1961, the school is located in Kings County, Washington, about 17 minutes south of Seattle.
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