Monday morning, administrators found a replica gun in possession of one of the students at Desert Hot Springs High School.
According to authorities, the weapon was realistic-looking and was inspected by law enforcement. No person could have been hurt and the campus was never in danger.
The school issued the following PA announcement to students regarding the incident:
This is Principal Cota with an important message about your safety. During 4th period today, we found a toy replica weapon on a student. A group of students saw something that they believed might be a weapon and reported it to Mr. Grein during passing period. We immediately investigated to find out whether the eyewitness accounts were credible and there was any threat to the campus. We apprehended the student and he is being disciplined.
You may wonder why we did not call for a lockdown. The Palm Springs Unified safety protocol is to find out if there is a credible threat before calling a lockdown. The purpose of a lockdown is to keep dangerous people from entering classrooms. We want to avoid to locking a group of people in a room where there might be a weapon and alerting a suspect that we have information about him or her.
In this case, we determined that there was no real weapon and that the campus was safe. At no time was anyone in danger of being harmed, so no lockdown was called.
Going forward, we encourage all of our students to never bring items to school that resemble weapons. Someone might think the object is real and cause you harm as a result. Also continue to report anything that you are concerned about. If you see something, say something! It is better to be safe, if you have any suspicions.
Thank you and have a great rest of the day, Golden Eagles!
