HOAX PHONE CALL SENDS BRENHAM HIGH SCHOOL INTO LOCKDOWN
Brenham High School was locked down on Thursday afternoon after a 9-1-1 call about someone possibly suicidal on the back side of the property.
According to Assistant Brenham Police Chief Lloyd Powell, the call came in between 3:30-3:45pm. The call came in from a non-returnable number, and the caller never said they were in the school.
As a precaution, the high school was locked down, while Brenham Police, the Washington County Sheriff’s Office, Blinn College Police, Texas DPS, and Constables checked the vehicles and buildings on campus.
Officers found everything to be clear, and ended the lockdown. However, they did remain on campus so that parents could pick up their kids safely.
Assistant Chief Powell went on to say that these calls have been happening at multiple school districts throughout the state of Texas.
These calls have turned out to be a hoax, and he added there is no reason to believe that there is any outstanding danger.
We all have to wonder what is the mental mindset of a person(s) who would make such a prank phone call. Definitely this is a sign of the times in which we are living as this type of incident is happening more frequently in schools across our nation. There are not any “protections nor policies” that can prevent incidents like this from occurring. We can only hope to make it more difficult for them to happen thus reducing the number of times they do happen. This can be done by having a visible presence of police officers actually patrolling the perimeter of each school. And prosecute the offenders in hopes to deter others, provided the perps are ever caught. Brenham is not exempt from becoming another Sandy Hook. It is great that law enforcement respond rapidly to a report of an “armed shooter” or threat by phone! We certainly would not want them to arrive to find dead and wounded bodies of students and teachers lying on the pavement or inside classrooms. Every community in this city can identify the homes where there are a group of persons who are a “menace to society”. Law enforcement does too! There are also drugged thugs, criminals and mentally unstable people who visit Brenham from other cities. Folks, it only takes one crazed, deranged, angry “menace to society” to create a societal massacre that send shock waves through out our “quiet little” town. Prevention is key to our safety. Protection and policy are also common sense tools needed to reduce crime as a result of our changing culture. Arm yourselves as it is legal to carry in Texas. Do not depend on law enforcement to keep us safe as they only arrive after a theft, murder or shooting. Teach your school age children how to protect themselves in case of an active shooter situation, encourage them to report strange and suspicious acting classmates and how to spot anything that “does not fit” in, near or around a school. And lastly, do not put your trust in BISD or any school district to keep students safe as they will not nor can not. There have been 37 school shootings on K-12 campuses so far this year. The question is not “what are we doing right”; but, rather “what are we doing wrong”. How much would be too much to spend to invest in protective protocals to ensure the safety of YOUR CHILD OR GRANDCHILD? Perhaps it is time for the BISD Board, City and County Government and Law Enforcement to listen to the people whose taxes pay their salaries!
I graduated from here in Brenham in 1994. My junior and senior years, the school received bomb threats on a regular basis the last 2 months of the school years. It happened usually on fridays and were taken seriously until we made it to the parking lot where we a nice 1-2 hour break was enjoyed….seriously…it happened alot…
Has anyone ever thought about doing a fundraiser for school safety? I am sure there would be a great deal of money given to the cause of metal detectors at the schools!! There is a fundraiser for everything else and safety should be top priority!!!
There are school districts in the area where
A number of people have taken and passed protective defense shooting several years ago. It is not necessarily known who these protectors are and that maximizes the protection the kids, teachers and staff have comfort in. These courses and the degree of confidence they provide have been available to BISD for years. I suggest the parents force the board to adopt a similar program. You have a person in the community that has the training and expertise to share in this area.
His name is John Deans and you should call him before the next incident comes and it’s no a hoax.
To all of the MANY brave people that responded yesterday to keep our children safe – THANK YOU !!!! I cannot say it enough. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts!! We have one heck of a law enforcement
team here in Washington County!!!! Praise the Lord! BE PROUD!!!!!! OUTSTANDING JOB!!!!!!
BISD • One concern that I share with MANY other parents is why it took so long for the school district to send out an alert to parents. There were parents driving right into the situation to pick up kids – there were frantic kids texting/calling – parents had no clue what was happening. We are not asking a police officer or ANY other person that is ACTIVELY looking for a possible killer to STOP what they are doing to send an alert. Life saving is the MOST important – we can all agree on that. However, it would be great if there are designated people within the school district (central office perhaps) to type a simple “Brenham High School is locked down” message to parents. It would literally take as long as it takes to send a text message. We aren’t asking for details here….we don’t need to know anything other than LOCKDOWN. For it to take over an HOUR for parents to be notified from the school is absolutely unacceptable. Hopefully there is never a time when such an alert is needed again. If so, parents deserve better. Please do better.
But Brenham is the safest district right? With the best kids and best teachers right?! Nothing like that would ever happen in this town right? This is how it starts everyone. Prank calls and threats. I pray it doesn’t happen but with that mindset of “it is never really going to happen to us” you all know how that ends. Maybe the district should actually start to focus on actual security and not how they look and whatever false narrative they can push next.
To the law enforcement that were there to keep our kids safe that were at the High School attending after school activities…. THANK YOU. Your response and thoroughness are much appreciated. And another huge THANK YOU to the teachers and coaches that were there to protect our kids. As a mom and teacher in BISD, I can’t thank you enough!
Why has Bisd Not put any Metal Detectors in these campuses to try and insure there aren’t weapons coming into their campuses. Instead of the Wasted Money on the Booth that sits out front of the Hight school NOT being Used. Hell use the Money you charge kids to park on property to get metal detectors
how would that have changed what happened here??
It was a phone call from someone, maybe not even near brenham saying it was on the back side of the property. Metal Detectors would have changed nothing.
Thank you to law enforcement and BHS staff for erring on the side of caution and keeping our students safe. Student and staff safety should always be a priority. Thank you for all of your efforts!