Police Give TJ Elementary ‘All Clear’ After Lockdown
By FALLS CHURCH CITY COMMUNICATIONS
July 30, 2010
City of Falls Church Police locked down Thomas Jefferson Elementary School at approximately 9:30 this morning after a pedestrian reported observing a man walking on Seaton Lane wearing camouflage and carrying a helmet and what appeared to be an assault weapon. Officers immediately locked down the school and moved the children and staff inside to a central location. Police swept through the entire building, and searched the school property and adjacent area. Nothing was found and police have cleared the scene. As a precaution, police were also sent to Mt. Daniel Elementary School and the St. James School, both of which are running summer school programs.
Police believe that due to the nature and description of the situation, the man was likely carrying a paintball gun or an airsoft gun, which are used for recreational purposes. The man is described as a while male in his early twenties. Anyone with information about this person is asked to call police at 703-241-5050.
Officers will remain in the area to look out for suspicious activity and the school staff has been advised to keep the children inside until dismissal time as a precaution.
By (see byline)
July 30, 2010
Thanks to the community safety personnel who responded to this incident. Even though it turned out to probably be nothing, they can’t take chances with our kids’ safety…and it’s personal for me, as I have one going there.
MC
“Community safety personnel” makes it sound like they are candy stripers and red-cross volunteer. The thank you goes to our POLICE men and women!
Oh, brother! Good thing it wasn’t two or three kids walking near the school with their Airsoft guns; the City would have called in the National Guard. I’m sure that forty or fifty years ago a group of boys could have walked past a Falls Church school with their BB guns or even .22 rifles and nobody would have given it a second thought; now we’re in panic mode 365 days a year.
Dear William Barratt,
Thank you for your very thoughtful comments above. They make no sense. I’m sure things were much better for you “forty or fifty years ago”. I often reflect on how wonderful those times were, especially after I visit the Vietnam Memorial.
Because you believe things were much better 40 or 50 years ago, you want us to understand that a pedestrian walking on Seaton Lane, wearing camouflage and carrying a helmet and what appeared to be an assault weapon, does not merit a call to the police?
. . .
Mr. Barrett must be able to see into the future by looking into the past. Because it turned out to maybe be an airsoft gun (although the article says they assume was the case, not definite), the police MUST HAVE overreacted. He waits til the event is over, then implies it was an over reaction.
If however, the man had shot at our children, and our Police had acted in the way he suggests they should (or DID 50 years ago), he would be the first to say “Why didn’t they do something”.
Columbine, Virginia Tech, Stockton, Nichols Mine is why things are different now than they were 50 years ago.
Also, it wasn’t kids, the article says it was a man in his 20’s walking with an assault rifle….Very different than kids playing army!
My point is that the person who called the police probably didn’t look very carefully at the camouflage-clad man or boy before calling the police. I can easily imagine a panicky suburbanite seeing a protective mask used for Airsoft or paintball as a “helmet” and describing a teenage boy as a man “in his early twenties.”
God help the next group of kids who put on camouflage and play Airsoft in the woods near TJ!
Dear Mr. Barratt,
I think you’re right. Next time someone sees a person walking near an elementary school, who is wearing camouflage, with what appears to be an assault rifle and carrying what looks like a helmet, I think they should assume it’s just a boy on his way to play paint ball and not bother the police department. If it turns out wrong, it’s no big loss.
The odds are probably at least one in a million that a person matching that description is on his way to massacre anybody.
Whatever the odds, I wouldn’t want my kids to be the one!