Thursday’s school lockdowns had educators, parents and students on edge. They also set a record for the greatest number of schools San Diego Unified has ever had to lock down at the same time.
"It was completely unprecedented to have 10 schools on lockdown, concurrently. That has never happened before,” said Ursula Kroemer, spokesperson for San Diego Unified.
The threats turned out to be fake but they upset thousands of students, parents and educators.
“We have students who are being told they need to start going into lockdown mode, and that’s disruptive and it’s very scary,” Kroemer said.
The threats started around 9:30 am, and so many threats came in so fast, authorities thought a dozen schools could have been in danger.
Whoever issued the threats could end up paying for the multi-agency response. The district hasn’t added up the cost yet, but Kroemer points out massive multi-agency responses like this one are logistically complicated and expensive.
"There are people who calculate that. So that as you arrest somebody, (you) have that person pay the restitution," she said.
“There has been a lot of interest, in terms of what is the cost of the resources that are dedicated to this, not only in terms of our school police but in terms of SDPD and some of the other agencies who assisted with this."
