A Scary Morning and What we Learned

Today when I drove the boys to school, there were police cars parked on a side street.  I figured there was some kind of accident as there were several cars but I didn't pay much attention because we were close to being late.  Then I saw a police motorcycle with lights on in the parking lot and by the time that I got to the point where I would have turned into the parking lot, the motorcycle cop was there and directing people to go home.  Meesa Andelin, our friend from church who works there was also waving people to go home.  I talked with a few friends and texted with a few friends.  The police had put the school on shutdown.  I learned that some streets west of the school had been barricaded and there was an active shooter.  What I later learned directly from police is that there was a 911 call that suspected gun shots were heard in a home.  The police had put the school on lockdown as a safety precaution--there was no active shooter.  I drove around a little bit as I talked to friends and then went back to the house.  We went inside and the boys automatically went around and checked all of the doors in the house.  They even put a few chairs in front of the slider door and the door to the garage.  Then we knelt down and said a prayer.  Soon afterwards I learned that the suspect was apprehended and school was back to normal.

I took the kids to school and signed them in at the office.  That night at a PTA meeting we got the full story from the principal.  she is a really nice lady named Mrs. Olsen and she always seems to care so much for the kids when she talks about them at PTA meetings.  She talked about how the kids do drills, fire drills, earthquake drills and lockdown drills and then kids did really well this morning.  It dawned on me that the boys had taken the extra safety measures at our home because they'd learned to during lockdown exercises.  They were totally calm about it but were just locking all doors like they learn to do during drills.  No parent ever wants anything dangerous to even be remotely near their children, but I have to say that I learned again how awesome the staff at the school are, how awesome and calm and level-headed my boys are and that the Holy Ghost can bring comfort when we pray.