HUNTINGTON – Students at Gateway Regional Middle/High School in Huntington were ordered to shelter in place for more than an hour Tuesday morning.
According to Massachusetts State Police, they received reports of a student at the school who had brought a gun to school in a bag. It turns out that the item in question was a tool, and not a gun.
Wendy Long, community relations specialist for the Gateway Regional School District, said that the incident was reported at 9:45 a.m. The shelter in place order was lifted shortly after 10:45 a.m.
While the shelter in place order was in effect, parents were told not to call the school, and to stay away from the building.
A student reported seeing what she believed might be a weapon in another student’s locker, to her teacher. The teacher notified the office and Principal Jason Finnie immediately called a Shelter in Place.
Chief Robert Garriepy of the Huntington Police Department responded along with personnel from the Massachusetts State Police and the Worthington Police Department.
All student lockers in that section of the building were searched. Once the suspected student was identified, a second search was conducted revealing a piece of welding that had been mistaken for a weapon.
The shelter-in-place was released at about 10:45 a.m. at the conclusion of the investigation.
“Despite the disruption to the school day, I applaud the student who reported seeing what she thought was a weapon,” said Jason Finnie, in a call to district parents afterwards.
Gateway has had a set of protocols in place for dealing with such incidents for many years, and staff and students are well practiced in those procedures.
As always, parents are reminded to not call or come to the school in an emergency because this could tie up phone lines or hamper emergency responders. The school will do an all-call to notify parents as soon as they are able.
