Lockdown lifted at 2 Scottsdale schools after police respond to gun report
Dec 2, 2022, 8:34 AM | Updated: 12:31 pm
PHOENIX — Two campuses in north Scottsdale were placed on lockdown Friday morning after a student reported seeing a person with a gun at Cactus Shadows High School.
Officers searched the high school for about two hours but didn’t find a suspect, the Scottsdale Police Department said.
A student made the report to a school resource officer around 7:30 a.m., and the SRO ordered lockdowns at Cactus Shadows and neighboring Black Mountain Elementary School, Officer Aaron Bolin said during a press briefing.
The suspect was described as a school-aged male in dark clothing who was walking with a limp and carrying what appeared to be a revolver.
“After about two hours, our officers were able to clear the school and [were] unable to locate a suspect matching that description,” Bolin said.
School officials and police also looked at surveillance video footage but didn’t see anybody matching the description.
“Once the school was deemed safe, an all-clear was given [and] the school went into a modified lockdown, which then allowed the parents that began to show up to then be able to go collect their children if that’s what they chose to do,” Bolin said.
School officials were deciding whether classes would resume for the day, he added.
Bolin said police believe the student’s report was credible, and the response would be the same, regardless.
“If someone’s brave enough to see something and then say something — we always encourage that — then we act on that,” he said.
The nearby Cave Creek Unified School District office was also locked down for a time, according to an alert on the district website Friday morning.
Cactus Shadows is located at 5802 E. Dove Valley Road, southeast of the intersection of Cave Creek Road and Carefree Highway.
