Public Safety

Oceanside Middle School Lifts Lockdown After Weapon Search Completed

By Alison St John / Reporter

Published December 14, 2009 at 11:24 AM PST

This story was published more than 14 years ago.

Policemen standing outside Jefferson Middle School in Oceanside, CA during a lockdown on Monday, Dec. 14, 2009. The school decided to put classrooms on lockdown after a student reported hearing about a weapon in the girls' bathroom.

Oceanside Middle School Lifts Lockdown After Weapon Search Completed

Jefferson Middle School in Oceanside went into lockdown for several hours today.

School staff decided to put classrooms on lockdown shortly before 11 a.m. after a girl reported she heard other students in the girls’ bathroom speaking about a weapon.

School spokesman Steve Lombard did his best to reassure anxious parents who were kept waiting outside the school as police conducted a thorough search of the campus.

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“We want to make sure all your kids are absolutely safe, so they are in classrooms,” he said. “I know it’s inconvenient, but right now, they want to make sure everything is safe on campus.”

Lombard said the school simply followed procedures after the witness who reported the incident was deemed credible.

He said the school has a zero-tolerance policy for weapons, and in his three years of experience at Jefferson Middle School, a gun has never been found on campus.

Police reported more than a thousand students between the ages of 11 and 14 were on campus at the time. They were released classroom by classroom after being searched.

Public Safety

Alison St John

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Alison St John currently serves as a general assignment reporter and occasionally co-hosts KPBS Midday Edition. She fell in love with KPBS Radio when she arrived in San Diego in 1985 and first heard NPR. She has been a voice on KPBS Radio since 1989, and has served as a news reporter for radio, TV and the web, as well as anchoring, hosting, producing and editing. Alison has reported on stories about North County and was based in the KPBS' North County Bureau. Alison covered the metro beat during the critical period of the San Diego City pension crisis, and the education beat while Alan Bersin was the controversial Superintendent of San Diego City School District. She covered health when the industry was converting to managed care and told welfare reform stories in the late 1990s when Clinton was “ending welfare as we know it.” She has covered land use issues extensively, looking at the challenges of meeting a growing population while preserving community character, and developing a better transportation system to meet environmental concerns. She has done many stories on the military in San Diego, and the series she edited on the challenges veterans face returning from active duty to civilian life won “Best of Show” from the San Diego Society of Professional Journalists. She occasionally hosts the KPBS Roundtable and KPBS Midday Edition. Alison has won awards from the San Diego Press Club, the Society of Professional Journalists, the Associated Press TV and Radio Association, and the California Golden Mike Awards. Alison was born in Tanzania, brought up in Scotland, and earned her degree in psychology and sociology from Durham University in England. Her postgraduate diploma is in student counseling. She worked in England, Nigeria, Switzerland, Belgium, India, and Japan before moving to the United States in 1981. She now lives in Oceanside and enjoys how her community is growing and changing.