Unfounded fears and what we’ve learned now

The sound of ticking was coming from a student’s backpack, Thursday morning at Woodland Park High School. It immediately prompted school leaders to move students to another wing of the facility. It turned out that a music student put her metronome in her backpack and was bringing it to school. A metronome is used for music.

Yesterday, students saw a suspicious looking man in the area of the high school and Gateway elementary. He was wearing camo and carrying a backpack. I learned this morning that he is a parent who was waiting for his son to get out of the high school. Investigators got video surveillance footage from the schools to determine his identity and question him.

Two back to back days of unfounded school fear meant more police cruisers around the schools in Woodland Park. Police Chief Bob Larson says despite the false alarms, if you think something doesn’t look right, call it in, “I think we should act like we are in airports. There’s a lot of false alarms and we still make sure the airports are safe. We should do the same thing with schools.”

Stacy Shubloom is with the Woodland Park School District. She also is a Mom of a middle school student. She agrees with the Police Chief, 100 percent, “If there is a little bit of doubt that our students are in danger, we will do whatever it takes to keep them safe.”