50 Replies to "West Seattle Crime Watch: School lockdown over; 1 arrest"

• Paddy June 18, 2010 (2:06 pm)

  As a parent with a daughter at this school, I’m furious about the described lack of control her teacher had while in lockdown. The locked down students were watching the World Cup *ON TELEVISION*, shouting, and carrying on. Yes, it’s good that the students weren’t/aren’t traumatized, but what would we say should there ever be an actual in-the-school type of emergency and safety is compromised because teachers are unable to provide critical leadership? You may think I’m overreacting, but I came to Seattle from Colorado, and I can assure you that these things can happen (Google “Columbine Massacre” if you need a reminder).

• beachdrivegirl June 18, 2010 (2:16 pm)

  It probably depends on the reason for a lockdown. I believe a lockdowns are not always the result of a weapon being in the school.

• Gina June 18, 2010 (2:26 pm)

  If the danger is outside of the building, watching a sports event sounds like an ideal way to distract the kids, preventing hysteria and worry.

• star55 June 18, 2010 (2:40 pm)

  Was it truly a lockdown or a shelter in place? It does make a difference.

• Tim June 18, 2010 (2:45 pm)

  Shouting during either shelter in place or lockdown is not okay. Kids NEED to understand it is serious, so that they follow the rules. If they think it is just a reason to not have class than they might do something that makes the situation worse. Many bad school situations are caused by people known to the students – angry non-custodial parents, another student etc. Any kid that opens a door when they aren’t supposed to is causing a problem. Also bad would be a kid texting another “we are in room ___ watching the game”. It would be an advertisement of where the targets are.
  Quiet, calm, following directions.

• alison June 18, 2010 (2:53 pm)

  Very scary indeed. I just heard the whole story from my 6th grader. I hope we get the complete story soon.

• SM June 18, 2010 (3:15 pm)

  I agree, I don’t see this as being bad judgement on the teacher’s part at all – and if he/she wanted/needed to get the students’ attention focused on her in a fraction of a nanosecond, what more effective way possible than to simply turn off/unplug that TV set?

• Madison Teacher June 18, 2010 (3:27 pm)

  As a teacher at Madison, all of my students and all students I observed were following full lockdown procedure just as we do in drills, sitting on the floor against the wall and whispering with the door locked and lights off. The students were about half and half divided between being scared and being indignant that their field day was being taken up with a lockdown. Everything went smoothly: we had 800 students from outside free time to in classrooms in lockdown in about five minutes. The kids did great following directions and everyone stayed calm.

• Anthony June 18, 2010 (3:34 pm)

  am a student that gose to madison i saw the holething it was a guy with a mask and a hachet it was scary all the teachers got freaked out i did too but no one got hurt thats good :( :)

• MAS June 18, 2010 (3:37 pm)

  I don’t get it. Was the person with a garden tool threatening anyone?

  What would the arrest have been for?

  • WSB June 18, 2010 (3:39 pm)

    Still trying to find that part out.

• Madison Parent June 18, 2010 (3:51 pm)

  I was at Madison Middle School during the lockdown as a parent volunteer for field day. There were 800 students outside the building on the field. Within minutes the staff had all students and volunteers inside their classrooms and in lockdown position. This was done with an amazing level of control, efficiency and seriousness. Teachers didn’t know if this was a short-term or long-term lockdown and the kids had just come inside from some high-energy activites outside and I’m sure it was a very appropriate choice to have the kids watching a sports game on TV as a distraction. I was extremely pleased with the steps taken to ensure the safety of the students and staff. Kudos Madison Leadership!!

• Cheryl June 18, 2010 (4:08 pm)

  Wow. I can see they’re teaching excellent spelling/grammar skills at Madison.
  .
  Note to self: do not send daughter there for middle school education.

• Bob Loblaw June 18, 2010 (4:28 pm)

  wow. picking on a kid who just had a pretty scary day. Classy!

• lenguamor June 18, 2010 (4:35 pm)

  Cheryl is right.

  • WSB June 18, 2010 (4:57 pm)

    Guys, please. This is not about a school’s program and you can’t judge a school on one comment that purports to be from a student anyway. Also, we like to keep this a relatively free-of-critiquing-grammar-and-spelling zone. Much as I personally prize perfect (or close to it) grammar and spelling, not everyone has attained it, and that’s not a reason to dismiss the sentiment – if we screw up in our stories, please do point it out, but commenters are not under the same expectations, since it’s uncompensated writing! Meantime, I’m still trying to get more info but not terribly hopeful. And speculation isn’t much good either as I heard four different stories before I even got the police on the line, including what the office thought had happened – thanks, TR

• Bob Loblaw June 18, 2010 (4:57 pm)

  The kid is maybe 14, tops. He has several more years to get his grammar up to lofty standards. Why pick on him in a public forum on the Web? My kids were both there during this incident and I can tell you they were shaking when I came to pick them up. I can only hope Anthony’s not as upset as they were, and if he is/was that he is starting to feel safer. I also hope he doesn’t come back to this forum to see the attack. Hijacking this story to complain about grammar adds absolutely zero to the conversation.

• why_the_spite? June 18, 2010 (5:01 pm)

  When did this site turn into such a war zone? First some fussbudgets want kids to be quiet during a prolonged harmless disruption of their one “fun” day a year, then more people jab at those verifying that the fussbudgets are misrepresenting the facts? .
  What’s next? Maybe someone will bring an ax to the comments section and we’ll have to evacuate the blog? I hope they let us watch soccer on TV while the police tend to the problem.

• Vanessa June 18, 2010 (5:45 pm)

  My understanding is that the lockdown was for precautionary reasons and that the suspect/s were apprehended a block or two away from the school. I also heard from a parent who was volunteering at the school that the school and staff moved swiftly to secure the students and get them in a safe area.

  I am part of an emergency response team where I work so I understand the logistics of getting 800+ students to safety in a timely manner. Thanks to the staff at Madison for your timely efforts!!

• Erin June 18, 2010 (5:53 pm)

  I am a seventh grader at James Madison Middle School and I do not appreciate the comment from ‘Cheryl’ about grammar from Madison. I understand that some people do not have as intense intellectual standards as you, but you don’t have the prerogative to say such an insulting comment about my school as such as that. It has been a traumatizing day for us therefore you need to try to understand our situation at the moment please. Thank you.

• Garden_nymph June 18, 2010 (6:40 pm)

  …as long as you sit quietly along the wall… I’m just glad the students and teachers are all OK. It sounds like the situation was handled well. I look forward to getting the complete story.

• WestSide45 June 18, 2010 (7:43 pm)

  If you haven’t got thick enough skin to handle criticism of what you’ve written, do not hit the “Post” button.

• At Madison Today June 18, 2010 (7:50 pm)

  Madison did not follow lock down procedures today. Instead, we were directed to go into shelter-in-place mode which is different. This means we all are to remain in our rooms (or return to them) and carry on with our business. We are to keep kids in our rooms with us and to keep them calm. We had no idea how long we’d be there. Moving as many 11-14 year olds back into the building as we did in such a short time was an amazing feat. All of the staff at Madison, the parent volunteers, AND the kids did a great job getting into their safe rooms. The situation was over in just a short time and the students were allowed to return to their festivities. All-in-all, Madison deserves 5 out of 5 stars for their ability to keep everyone safe from harm today.

• Leroy June 18, 2010 (8:04 pm)

  Cheryl – you are very offensive! Critising / debasing a child who has just experienced a traumatic situation? Incredibly elitist – and your such a lack of empathy is frightening.

  I suck at grammar, sentence structure, spelling and more but I do hope you understand how strongly I am offended here.

• Colonel Sanders June 18, 2010 (8:34 pm)

  I was present during the lock down (being an 8th grader at Madison). Not every classroom had the World Cup games on. In my opinion, the only reason all the students were brought in so quickly, was because all the students on the field (including myself) were being yelled at and told to hurry and to run to advisory.
  In fact, a teacher ran up to me and my friends telling us to leave our binders on the grass and run for the building. When I got to class, the building was on full lock down. Everyone had the lights off, the curtains down, people were hiding under the desks. People were on their phones texting, and a few were crying. One person stood by the window with one of the science chairs. The chairs are very heavy and the size of bar stools.
  He did that because if someone got into the room, he could smash the chair against the window and escape.
  I heard a few rumors that the man with the Ax was a “juggalo” (a common term of a particular group of rap subculture) I don’t know if that is true or not because the person I heard it from is not exactly a reliable resource.

• Oliver June 18, 2010 (8:40 pm)

  BTW, Cheryl, news flash – teenagers often type in blogs and other electronic communications in a nonconventional format, which is to say without punctuation or other grammatical norms and with words spelled phonetically. It’s a universal trend, not a basis for slandering a particular school. (P.S. BTW means “by the way”).

• Aspen June 18, 2010 (9:45 pm)

  You tell her/him oliver(: Madison Middle School has been the top Middle School in the City for like 3 years, which to my understanding is probably the best to describe our school, because HEY! We are just Smarter than the rest of the Middle Schools in Seattle! So just think about that.

• Keely to cheryl June 18, 2010 (9:48 pm)

  I am reffering to what cheryl said about the grammer at Madison Middle School. Mam im a 7th grader at madison,and will say our school is fanastic. So i dont know where you went to school when you were our age, but im guessing they taught “you” wrong.
  any teen would love Madison, we have great teachers, ect.
  Today was a scary day for us, i bet if you were a teacher durning this time of day, you would be feeling over whelmed.
  so just chill, mkayy.
  thanks.

• Someone June 18, 2010 (9:48 pm)

  I am also a student from Madison Middle School and I would like to say that you cannot just judge a school by what one student say, that would be totally unfair to the other 899 students. Also kids often type in “chat language” while chatting with friends,texting,or blogs so this student probably just forgot to change the “language”.

• chad wollgast June 18, 2010 (9:54 pm)

  i was on the feild when the YMCA person told everyone to go to advisory and eveybody was yelling and if they were to be a harm it would not have been hard to danger one of us.

• Wshs June 18, 2010 (10:08 pm)

  I attend west Seattle high and we didn’t have a lock down,there were alot of rumors floating around that he came to the pcc and that’s were a coulple of students saw him be arrested.

• Anonymous June 18, 2010 (10:21 pm)

  I am as well a 7th grader who attends Madison Middle School. I do not appreciate Cheryl’s comment either. First, criticizing a young child? That’s ALOT better than spelling a few words incorrectly. And second, how dare you judge my school on the way one student types? It is unreasonable to expect every child at every school to have perfect grammar, especially because there is no way to even know if that is their best grammar. They may have been in a rush and couldn’t type perfectly at the moment. My teachers are wonderful. My principal is wonderful. My peers are wonderful. So you can stop judging my school, because you are incorrect about it. ANYONE WHO IS SMART would know that Madison Middle School is a wonderful school.

• Garden_nymph June 18, 2010 (10:26 pm)

  Anthony,

  Thank you for taking the time to share your first hand experience. It’s good that you are talking about it.

• Mari June 18, 2010 (10:29 pm)

  I’m a 6th grader at Madison Middle School. It was very scary to have all the teachers yelling, “RUN TO YOUR ADVISORY! THIS IS NOT A DRILL!” My friends and I were shaking the whole time. The teachers were even telling us it was OK to run to advisory. I think everyone did a good job on following directions because they were very aware of the serious situation.

• Madison Student June 18, 2010 (10:40 pm)

  Okay… As a seventh grader at Madison this was quite the experience. Not knowing what was going on scared me the most…plus the fact that we had a substitute in advisory. The teachers were making it clear that this was serious by their facial expressions and actions. Huddled against the wall I know our class did well at staying calm. I had a great reunion with my sister in sixth grade after everything was safe! It was great knowing she was alive! I was so scared yet thankful no one was hurt.

• Susan June 18, 2010 (10:44 pm)

  Having a 7th grader at Madison…and hearing all that occured, and talking with the vice-principal, I am thrilled with the way this incidencet was handled…and feel my child was in good hands. Can we just show some appreciation…and quite worrying about grammar for pete’s sake??? This could have been tragic…but it wasn’t. And from a parent’s perspective….for heavens sake…there aren’t many schools better than MADISON!

• MMS Student June 18, 2010 (11:15 pm)

  As a 6th grader at Madison , I believe that the real thing was better than the drills we have done before . I was in the dance at one minute and 2 minutes after that , I was in my Advisory . Also , to whoever is criticizing Madison’s way’s of teaching , what they teach , or how they teach it , I would suggest that you not be so judgemental . Like many of the students say now , just chill down .

• H.E.G.K June 19, 2010 (9:29 am)

  As a 6th grader at Madison I believe that the lockdown went well. Beside the fact of us being less than a block away from some guy with a hatchet, the teachers were yelling “THIS IS AN OK TIME TO RUN”. So we knew it was very serious. When I reached my advisory class I found my friends shaking in the corner against the wall. I asked my advisory teacher what was going on. Whispering she said “there’s a guy with weapon nearby”. The lockdown only lasted 10 minutes, and afterwards I was glad to be reunited with my friends.

• parent June 19, 2010 (9:43 am)

  My sons are both students at Madison. They said that they were out on the field for field day and within a couple of minutes students were inside the building. It sounds like the teachers did a great job.

• audrey June 19, 2010 (11:32 am)

  im a 6th grader at madison too. i agree with all of the madison students above. JUST CHILL CHERYL!

• dmc June 19, 2010 (1:00 pm)

  My daughter is in the 8th grade at Madison. She and her friends came home yesterday for a sleepover and were very vague about the shelter in place procedure that took place yesterday. Upon discussing with our daughter further, it was a very scary experience. I would like to thank MMS for how they handled their response. My daughter stated that she felt very safe and secure because of how the principal, VPs, and staff handled the situation. The security supervisor ran right to the kids to ensure their safety. And thank you to the children for sharing their experiences with us.

• natalie June 19, 2010 (1:46 pm)

  I am a student at Madison and during the shelter-in-place yesterday, everyone seemed a bit scared though most of us didn’t know what was going on. The teachers remained calm yet quickly ushered all students to their advisory/homeroom. madison is a great school that academics and grammar (yes you cheryl) are taught fluently

• Gina June 19, 2010 (1:52 pm)

  My great niece was posting on facebook about what was happening at Madison yesterday. She is a 7th grader. When kids text message I don’t really fuss about what is being said/grammar/spelling. The emotions certainly came through. The kids were really excited about posting to the West Seattle Blog.

  • WSB June 19, 2010 (2:29 pm)

    I haven’t checked the referral logs but enough comments have come thru here I figured somebody had mentioned the link … I strongly believe in grammar and spelling skills but I do need to add to the guidelines that while you can pick at us all you want because we write on this site for a living, aside from factual corrections, let’s hold back on picking fellow commenters apart!
    .
    P.S. And to the youth who have taken the time to come here to comment (I have a middle-schooler myself – going back into Seattle Public Schools though he’s been studying online for the past two years) – you are welcome to come here and participate, as long as you follow the rules, any time! I have had to refuse approval of a few comments which did break our rules, such as attempting to put out unconfirmed information about the incident itself, or directly insulting someone else in the same thread – Tracy (the editor/co-publisher)

• Ezgiii E June 19, 2010 (9:38 pm)

  Madison is more than a great school! It’s words that I can’t Describe!No rude comments here,but watch what you say over the internet…please. You never know what kind of trouble you’ll get yourself into. So because of that small comment,it caused a big fight.I would like to say my grammar is not close to perfect. So? I love Madison! The teachers,students,and so on. I’m next years A.S.B for seventh grade and I’m proud of it. You have to have good grades. But does grammar revolve around an A? The answer is clear here. So think twice before you decide not to take your child to Madison because ONE person didn’t have GREAT grammar. That just leaves out the other 799 GREAT students that go to Madison. I want to speak for myself and say Madison is great! I enjoy the teachers there,and they enjoy us… :)

• Ezgiii E June 19, 2010 (9:40 pm)

  Say “I” if you agree.

• Jennifer June 20, 2010 (12:09 am)

  I am a teacher at West Seattle High School. I did not see the incident, but several of my students came back from lunch talking about it, and one of my colleagues was involved in de-escalating the behavior of some of our students, and of the young man in makeup, who may have been carrying a hatchet. My students came in excitedly talking about a “juggalo” (an ICP–Insane Clown Posse–fan), who had been looking for, and making threats regarding a student. My colleague, seeing that several of our students were very agitated by this man, and fearing that violence may occur, stepped up to the young man in make-up, and said, “Please let me apologize for our students. They are so immature. You don’t want to fight them. You don’t want to bother with them.” The group of our students dispersed — one ran into the school to get security, and the young man moved on. I said to my colleague, “Wow! You must have been frightened!” She said, “I really wasn’t, because I could feel the guy’s fear.” As a calm, mature teacher with years of experience, with no other adults in the immediate vicinity, my colleague knew what she had to do. She stepped in, got between the young man and our students, and effectively deescalated the situation. My colleague exemplifies the kinds of teachers we have at West Seattle High School and at Madison; she is knowledgeable, caring, and devoted to our students. Madison IS a great school, and so is West Seattle High School. Madison students and community members, I am so proud of the way you spoke up for your school on the West Seattle Blog! You make me proud to live and work in West Seattle.

• Bob Loblaw June 20, 2010 (8:00 am)

  Very proud of Madison students and staff, West Seattle High staff, and West Seattle Blog after re-visiting this post. You all kept it classy. Enjoy your summer vacation (well, Tracy, you don’t get vacation. LOL) — you’ve all worked hard this year and it shows.
  .
  Onward and upward!

• Clovers June 20, 2010 (12:12 pm)

  I agree with everybody about cheryls comment, because you shouldn’t judge the school by one persons writing, and it was on the computer so you don’t know if that’s actually how the person writes. I am a seventh grader at madison and I think it’s a great school, and it wasn’t even their fault that this happened, and what are the chances of it happening again? Everybody’s safe, and the guy got arrested I think, according to the teachers. So your kids should definately go to madison :D

• Ezgiii E June 23, 2010 (2:01 pm)

  Okay. We got this all solved. No more rude comments.

Sorry, comment time is over.