FRAMINGHAM, Mass. — An active shooter alarm at a Massachusetts high school accidentally went off Friday while maintenance crews were working on the system.
Framingham Public Schools Superintendent Robert Tremblay said the alarm inside Framingham High School sounded around 10:20 a.m. as the battery was being changed, reports MetroWest Daily News.
“The good news is, this was a false alarm,” he said. “The bad news is, it caused a lot of people to be upset unnecessarily.”
Videos shared on Facebook show students running from their classrooms and into a nearby neighborhood. Others stayed in their classrooms and took cover.
“One of my son’s teachers barricaded doors, pushed desks up, and moved all the children into a corner,” said Joe Doherty, whose twin sons attend the school. “I am disappointed they would look to change a battery in the middle of the school day. This is a traumatizing event for the children.”
Tremblay said students who evacuated and were upset were allowed to take the rest of the day off.
“We train people, if you have an active shooter, you don’t necessarily hide in the corner as you did in the lockdown days,” said Tremblay. “You get out. They did the right thing.”
Patrick Almeida, a junior, told 10 Boston he was taking a test when the alarm went off and a computerized voice said, “Active shooter detected in J Hall.”
“We were confused, because we’ve heard drills over the intercom, and we know what they sound like, but we’ve never heard these alarms before,” he said. “My class came to a state of panic. As soon as the teacher heard it, she got up and closed the door, and told everyone to get down and get in the corner. Another teacher moved a big metal cabinet to barricade the door and turned off the lights. Today I saw panic in my teachers, and that’s when it set in that this was not a drill.”
Almeida questioned why the school didn’t wait until after-school hours or February vacation, which is this week, to change the batteries.
“Why did no one alert teachers and staff that there is a possibility that an alarm could go off? This has caused an excessive amount of panic. This could have been avoided,” he said. “I didn’t understand why that was a good idea to test or change batteries, especially in a week when we’ve seen threats in Massachusetts schools.”
Last week, more than a dozen Massachusetts police departments received swatting calls threatening school violence, according to WCVB.
“The male caller states that he is armed with an ‘AR-15’ and ‘pipe bombs’ in a backpack,” Massachusetts State Police Fusion Center wrote in a statement. “The call ends with the sound of gunfire.”
Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education is working with law enforcement to investigate the threats. The department said schools and districts have received training and technical assistance in developing emergency response plans that cover incidents of swatting.
