Junior Kyra LaFitte texted fellow track and field teammate junior Joe Mo to quickly get inside once the lockdown started.
Just one day after the school’s first lockdown drill in four years, SCDS had a real lockdown.
On Wednesday, March 7, at around 4:25 p.m., SCDS went on lockdown when an armed robber was supposedly in the neighborhood.
“We saw a helicopter circling near the school before the actual lockdown happened,” junior Jack Christian said. “They were shouting, ‘Michael Diaz, we’re searching for you. We have canine units out; turn yourself in.”
Christian and other high school students were on the baseball field for baseball and track and field practices.
Christian said that both teams continued their practices and ignored the helicopter until they saw head of high school Brooke Wells approach them.
Wells told the teams that they needed to go indoors immediately.
“He told us to stay calm and walk smoothly to the gym,” Christian said.
The baseball team left all their equipment on the field, according to junior Nate Jakobs.
Christian said that they waited for around 20 minutes in the gym before Wells returned and informed them that the suspect was on the opposite side of the American River, and they were free to go home.
“We kind of just sat there and talked the whole time,” Jakobs said.
“(The lockdown) didn’t seem super high pressure or urgent. None of us were scared or anything.”
The track and baseball teams weren’t the only ones affected by the lockdown.
The marathon elective was walking back to SCDS from Jamba Juice in Loehmann’s Plaza when they saw the same helicopter that Christian had seen and heard the same warning.
Senior Sonja Hansen said that when they returned to school, (dean of students Patricia) Jacobsen called the After School Enrichment program and told them to take the kids inside, lock the doors and pull the shades.
“It didn’t feel like a real lockdown from where I was,” Hansen said. “We didn’t pull the shades or get under the desks, mostly because (Jacobsen) was trying to warn everybody.”
Hansen also said that Jacobsen was frequently checking NextDoor, an app that tells you the police action in the neighborhood.
“Everyone in the forum didn’t know what was going on and was just submitting questions,” Hansen said.
Hansen also said it didn’t feel like an intense lockdown because of how casual it was.
“People called their parents to pick them up and left,” Hansen said. “But in a real lockdown, are you allowed to (or) should you leave?”
In fact, Hansen left campus during the lockdown to drive junior Brandy Riziki home.
“When I dropped off (Riziki), the gate to her neighborhood was locked, and she was surprised because they lock it only at night,” Hansen said.
Jakobs agreed with Hansen that it didn’t feel like a real lockdown.
“It was pretty low-key,” he said.
However, Jakobs said that the school should invest in having a loudspeaker outdoors.
“We definitely wouldn’t have known there was a lockdown if (Wells) hadn’t come out to us,” Jakobs said.
—By Annya Dahmani
