A second-grade boy brought a bright orange cap gun to Eleanor Roosevelt Elementary School Tuesday morning, where he allegedly pointed it at two 6-year-olds and fired it, discharging smoke, according to police and school officials.
The initial report and subsequent police reaction reflected a much more serious situation.
The two students told a playground supervisor that another student had fired a gun at them, prompting a 911 report that shots were fired at the school playground. That spurred a high-alert response from the Vancouver Police Department.
“When you have that type of a call, there’s no waiting,” said Kim Kapp, a police spokeswoman. “One minute after the call we were dispatched.”
Students were assembling for the morning at Eleanor Roosevelt Elementary School, 2921 Falk Road, when the toy gun was fired. The police department responded to the 8:22 a.m. report with patrol officers and on-duty SWAT officers.
In five minutes, they were told the gun might have been a toy.
By then, a SWAT sweep and evacuation of the school had already been set in motion. Students were returned to class by 9 a.m., after police confirmed the weapon was only a toy, officials said.
“Our procedures are to respond as if it were a real gun,” Kapp said. “The response that we provided related to that information is what we always want to do. If we have additional information that maybe it’s a real gun, or threats, then we bring in more people.”
The student and the cap gun were located at the school. Kapp said it is unlikely the boy will face charges because he is so young.
School officials, however, met with the child and his parents to determine possible punishment, according to Kris Sork, a district spokeswoman.
“We are recording an automated message to go out to parents to reassure them everything is OK,” Sork said shortly after the incident, adding that a letter detailing the events would be sent home.
Authorities blocked access to the school, which serves kindergartners through fifth-graders, during the half-hour lockdown. Several cars were redirected by a police officer parked in the middle of the roadway near the intersection of Falk Road and Gibbons Street.
Kristy Erickson said she saw three police cars, sirens flashing, pass her on Fourth Plain Road after she dropped her three daughters and a neighbor’s child off at the school.
Erickson said she pulled over and called the school and a secretary told her it was only a drill. She pressed, and was informed a kindergarten student had witnessed another student with a gun on the playground.
Erickson, who volunteers at the school, said she signed in at the office and went to her children’s classroom after the evacuation ended.
“Their teacher said everything was pretty calm,” Erickson said. “The kids were all sitting in one big group. They had the curtains closed and the doors shut.”
Phillip Smith, who has second- and fifth-grade students at Roosevelt, said he watched the scene unfold while he stood across the street outside his Bagley Downs neighborhood house. He said police came flying in from all directions and SWAT officers emerged from an SUV armed with assault rifles.
“I’d rather they respond and be overboard and have no kids hurt than under-respond and one kid gets hurt,” Smith said. “Isn’t that what we want? I thought the response was great.”
