Lockdown lifted at Coachella Valley High School after unsubstantiated reports of student with a gun
Update 3/21/23 12:52 p.m.
The lockdown has been lifted, the school confirmed in an email to parents at around 1:00 p.m.
"After a thorough investigation, and working closely with law enforcement, the anonymous report of a gun on campus was found to be unsubstantiated," reads an email sent to parents.
Original Report 3/21/23 11:51 a.m.
Coachella Valley High School has been placed on lockdown following an anonymous report of a student with a gun on campus, authorities confirmed Tuesday morning.
"This morning we became aware of an anonymous report of someone spotting a girl with a gun through a restroom stall gap," reads an email from the Coachella Valley Unified School District to parents.
“Scared me. It's very scary. And this is ridiculous," said parent Sofia Alvarez.
Riverside County Sheriff's deputies were called to the school at around 10:39 a.m. as a precaution, a spokesperson for the agency confirmed. The agency confirmed that there is no active shooter.
"We ask that you please do not pick up your student and that you allow us to complete our investigation," reads the email. "We will continue to keep you posted."
CVHS has been on lockdown multiple times this year already for similar incidents.
On March 7, the school was placed on lockdown after reports of a student with a knife. Authorities concluded that the report was unfounded.
“Second time. Second time. This is crazy, irresponsible, inappropriate, inappropriate, unprofessional. I'm thinking of changing him to school," Alvarez said.
Since that incident, CVHS implemented backpack checks. Alvarez believes it's not enough to keep students safe.
“These kids could put weapons in their pockets in their shoes, so I don't know," she explained. "I think they should have a metal detector because these bag checks are ridiculous. And this is ridiculous because I have better things to do than get my blood pressure high for BS like this.”
Despite Tuesday's incident being a false alarm, the district says it takes all threats very seriously.
“We need to make sure that we respond seriously because we do not want anybody to get hurt, whether it's staff, students, and teachers. So we want to make sure that we create a safe learning environment for our students," said CVUSD Board Member Trinidad Arredondo.
Arredondo has been a big advocate of bringing school resource officers back to campuses.
“Safety and security is a primary responsibility of the school board. And right now, we don't have school resource officers. And by the time it takes to respond, something could happen to our children.”
Although the board has not come to an agreement on SROs, Arredondo tells us he will continue to push for their return.
“We've had too many incidences in this past year, that that I don't want to wait till something happens in order for us to respond. And we need to respond quickly," Arredondo said.
In late February, hundreds of CVHS students walked out of class to protest demanding improved safety measures.
"Honestly, we've had so many incidents, we've had incidents with knives, we had someone that set off a firework in the bathroom," said Abigail Alvarez Aguilar, a senior at CVHS.
A News Channel 3 investigation has uncovered that district officials didn't follow safety protocols in multiple incidents when weapons were reported at valley schools. One example was when a loaded handgun was found in a backpack at a Coachella high school in January.
Stay with News Channel 3 for continuing updates.
