“The kids just called her and said there’s an active shooter in building … and then the kids hung up because they’re running.”
One of the dozens of 911 calls made after an unannounced drill at Lake Brantley High School
Students told the Orlando Sentinel last week they were traumatized after the Dec. 6 drill.
A resident of the nearby Brantley Hall Estates neighborhood, who said he has two children who attend Lake Brantley, described seeing students “running for their lives” from the school and demanded to know “exactly what happened today.” A dispatcher offered to have a Seminole County sheriff’s sergeant call the concerned father.
“He needs to call me, because I’m going to rattle cages,” the man said.
A woman said her sister’s kids had called to say there was a shooter at their school.
“The kids just called her and said there’s an active shooter in building … and then the kids hung up because they’re running,” she said.
The dispatcher told the woman
it was just a drill.
“Why would they do that?” she asked.
“Honestly, I have no idea, but it’s just a drill,” the dispatcher replied.
Another woman called dispatchers in tears.
“I’m freaking out,” she said.
Some callers were told to contact the school. At least one said he tried but wasn’t able to reach anybody.
Parents were made aware that the drill wasn’t a real threat at 11:12 a.m. — 51 minutes after the start of the exercise.
The calls also demonstrate how even the school’s faculty weren’t aware of the drill. One man, who says he’s the boyfriend of a Lake Brantley teacher, tells a dispatcher his girlfriend got an alert about an active shooter.
A father whose daughters attend the school told another dispatcher his kids were “very scared.” He said the Sheriff’s Office should reconsider conducting unannounced drills because “the students are not going to believe when it’s real.”
Five days after the drill, Seminole County Sheriff Dennis Lemma said going forward, his agency would let students, parents and faculty know “Code Red” drills are only exercises “at that very moment.”
Some callers demanded to know who was responsible.
“My sister’s school had a Code Red today and I’m being told that it was the Seminole County Sheriff ’s Office who decided to do an unannounced Code Red, can you confirm or deny that?” one woman asked. “Because if it was, I would like to know how they were authorized, and if they were not, I will be contacting an attorney.”
Other callers were so upset they needed to be told more than once it was only a drill.
“It was definitely a drill?” one caller asked, her voice shaking. “Because there were people that didn’t know that, OK?”