Lockdown at Rancho Cotate High School in Rohnert Park

<p>Classes resumed at Rohnert Park’s Rancho Cotate High School after the campus was locked down Wednesday for more than two hours because of unconfirmed reports of an armed male in a bathroom.</p><p>No such person was ever located nor were any weapons, police said.</p><p>But hundreds of students opted to head home for the afternoon after a frightening morning that had about 150 anxious parents crowded outside desperate to get to their kids.</p><p>“It was scary,” sophomore Michelle Smith said as she, her twin sister, Nicholle, and their parents prepared to leave campus once the lockdown was lifted.</p><p>A 9:19 a.m. cellular call to 911, which put the caller on the phone with CHP dispatchers in Vallejo, indicated only that a male student with a handgun was in a bathroom at “The Ranch” - a common nickname for Rancho Cotate, Rohnert Park Public Safety Department spokesman Art Sweeney said.</p><p>A dispatcher alerted Rohnert Park dispatch and tried to transfer the call, but the caller had hung up, Sweeney said.</p><p>It remained unknown Wednesday afternoon if the call was a hoax. There was some speculation around the fact that hundreds of Rancho students, like sophomores around California, were on their second day of a state-mandated exit exam.</p><p>But police treated the call as a credible threat as a matter of routine, launching protocols rehearsed at least twice a year with campus and police personnel, Sweeney said.</p><p>The Snyder Lane school of about 1,600 students was put on immediate lockdown, all the doors and windows locked, and students and staff alerted via public address system.</p><p>Private Cross & Crown Lutheran School, located across the street from Rancho Cotate, also was locked down just as a precaution, Sweeney said.</p><p>Twenty-four public safety officers quickly flooded the high school - those assigned to fire duty, standing by with their engines — while Petaluma Police personnel back-filled police stations and the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Department handled additional calls.</p><p>Two teams of five Rohnert Park officers conducted an initial sweep of the campus, then began a more thorough search of bathrooms and the outdoor grounds.</p><p>Contact also was made with teachers in each room where students were assembled to ensure there were no threats or indications of anything amiss indoors, he said.</p><p>Police nonetheless took some criticism in the immediate aftermath of the lockdown after first telling parents “every nook and cranny” was being searched, then backtracking and saying all classrooms were not searched.</p><p>But authorities checked in every classroom using pre-rehearsed coded exchanges with teachers and others to identify police on one side and verify everything on the other was OK, Sweeney said.</p><p>“We were in every classroom,” he said. “Did we search every student, every backpack, every closet and cranny in the classrooms? No, we didn’t.”</p><p>Many parents said they were alarmed that the classrooms weren’t searched, one calling it “ridiculous.”</p><p>“A lot of parents were upset,” said Gary McKay as he was reunited with his son, Patrick McKay, a Rancho sophomore. “Bottom line is everybody is out safe.”</p><p>“We believe we made the right decision to search to the extent we did,” Commander Dave Frazer said.</p><p>“Unless you’re going to check every bag, my son won’t be coming back to school until Monday,” one man said. </p><p>He and Sweeney said police would use the cell number of the 911 call to try to track down the caller.</p><p>Once the campus was open, parents rushed the school to get in line and show identification so their children could be released.</p><p>The school was locked down about 9:19 a.m. Wednesday after a 911 cell phone call suggested a male was on campus with a firearm, apparently in a bathroom, police said.</p><p>More than 100 anxious parents had gathered outside the Snyder Lane campus by the time Frazer announced at 11 a.m. that police had found no firearms and would lift the lockdown.</p><p>He said school administrators intended to resume the school day, though many of the parents at the scene said they wanted to take their children home.</p><p>“I’m not leaving without her,” said Amy Reynolds, who rushed to the campus after her freshman daughter texted her and said, “I’m scared. We’re in lockdown.”</p><p>Many of those standing outside were in touch with their children via cell phone and were grateful for technology that allowed them to communicate with youngsters locked inside.</p>