Lockdown

Every so often, I'm reminded that this isn't the world I grew up in.

A disturbing sequence of events began unfolding yesterday afternoon when our older spawn called his mom with news that his school had gone into emergency lockdown and that the campus was crawling with cops. My wife called me from her office, and I turned on my desktop scanner to see what I could find out.

Sure enough, the channels were crackling with transmissions among city and county units, as well as a chopper dispatched from a nearby metro department. It wasn't long before I learned that there was an armed threat, from outside the area and against one particular student, believed to be en route to the school. A BOLO was issued for the suspect and the stolen vehicle he was said to be driving.

After the target was in protective custody and the buildings and grounds were secured, school officials released students to their buses, under watchful eyes and heavy security. Next, parents were permitted to pick up their kids, and then students who drove their own cars were allowed to leave. Every inbound and outbound vehicle was checked by law enforcement.

All after-school activities were canceled. Our spawns drove directly to a relative's house, the closest "safe" place for them to be.

The suspect never did show up at the school -- he was apprehended 12 hours later and 20 miles away, passed-out drunk in the stolen car. He now faces multiple charges.

Disconcerting as it was, threats like this no longer are uncommon. I'm glad to say that our local law-enforcement professionals responded quickly and no one got hurt.

I'm somewhat less thrilled with our suburban school district's emergency-communications system, an automatic e-mail alert that's supposed to go to parents immediately when their child's school goes into lockdown.

Oh, I got my alert -- time-stamped at the moment that the lockdown was lifted. Another e-mail, informing me that students were being released, didn't arrive until almost an hour later. Today I'll be letting the district know that its system needs some serious tweaking.

Soon my wife and I will sit down with our spawns to talk through what happened yesterday. When we do, we'll have more to learn than we have to teach -- after all, an armed threat at school wasn't part of our childhood. Sadly, it's part of theirs.