11/16/2009 1:01:00 PM UPDATE: Camp Verde Schools in lockdown following threat Hoax suspected
By Steve Ayers & Jon Hutchinson Staff Reporters
CAMP VERDE - The Camp Verde Marshal's Office ordered the entire Camp Verde School District complex into lockdown on Monday following a call made by someone claiming to be armed and on the high school campus.
According to High School Principal Bob Weir, the Camp Verde Marshal's Office received a call about 10:17 a.m. from someone reporting they were armed and in one of the school bathrooms. Later the caller reported he was in the gymnasium, hiding under the bleachers and threatened to shoot anyone who came in.
The first officers to respond were Officer Desiree Trujillo, an officer for the Yavapai-Apache Nation, who is also the district's resources officer, and a detective from the YAN Police Department who happened to be on campus.
The two conducted a search of the bathrooms before additional officers from the CVMO, YAN Police Department, PANT (countywide narcotics taskforce), the Yavapai County Sheriff's Office and Cottonwood Police Department.
The combined detail searched the gymnasium, the Multi-Use Complex, and parts of the middle school. After nearly an hour and a half of searching, the search was called off and the campuses were reopened shortly after noon.
"We had reason to suspect it was a hoax when it was first called in. But it's a school, and you can't take any chances with a school," Marshal Dave Smith said.
Smith said he suspected the call might have made the call as a diversion for another student who had been arrested earlier for drug possession.
Marshal's Office spokeswoman Robin Bruno says the call history shows the 911 call actually originated from the Casa Grande area, not locally, and then was transferred to Camp Verde through another agency, possibly Tucson.
Attempts to 'triangulate' the cell phone call between the carrier and Qwest were not successful
The caller claimed that he was "drugged up and had a gun," according to Bruno, but officers said he sounded coherent and continued to talk while on the phone for a period.
The caller gave the authorities what he claimed was his name, but the name is not that of a student enrolled in the Camp Verde School system and not a name for which police have a record. It is the name of an area adult male, but the voice on the phone was not that of an adult.
Bruno says the voice kept asking for an actual Camp Verde student. When questioned that student claimed that he did know the caller, but not very well and had not spoken to him for months, perhaps a year. The student said he did not know what the caller would want.
The call eventually ended, apparently when the caller's battery died.
The incident remains under investigation by the Camp Verde Marshal's Office.
Officers remained on campus after the students were released from lockdown at 12:05 p.m.
The school district sent out letters to parents describing the events.
"Please understand that the safety of your children is of the highest priority to us. We are very thankful that this situation was a false alarm," Superintendent Dan Brown states in the letter.
