'This Is Not a Drill': Students on the Terror of Lockdowns

School gun violence and the terror it creates have riveted America again since a gunman shot and killed 17 people last month at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. The public outrage has produced a new wave of protests, including walkouts in schools across the country Wednesday.

But acts of violence aren’t the only source of school terror.

For each heinous attack successfully carried out, there have been many more scores of threats in schools across the country. And while thankfully no one dies because of a threat, fake or foiled attacks can be terrifying, too.

After the Parkland attack, The New York Times reached out to students across the country, asking them about threats their schools have received. The Times heard from more than 100 teenagers, some describing hiding in dark closets and classrooms, sometimes for hours, as they braced for an attack.

In the five months from August to December 2017, there were at least 671 bomb or gun threats — or both — directed at U.S. schools, according to the Educators School Safety Network, a nonprofit that provides school safety training. In the past month, since the Parkland shooting, there have been more than 465 bomb or gun threats or both.

Here is a selection of the student responses, condensed and edited for clarity. We have corroborated each threat by reviewing local news reports and, in some cases, contacting the teenagers’ school districts and classmates.

— ‘The thought of a possible shooting made me nauseous.’

I was sitting in physics last year when suddenly, we heard, “This is a lockdown, this is NOT a drill.” We calmly crawled under the desks, not thinking too much of it. And then rumors started flying on social media.

The general conclusion was that someone had a gun in their backpack, and that a kid saw and reported it. The thought of a possible shooting made me nauseous.

Our substitute teacher could not figure out how to lock the doors. Kids started making jokes out of the situation, and we were instructed to put our phones away. All I could think was, “I can’t believe my biggest fear could possibly come true in this moment.” I texted my parents that I loved them.

— ‘We were in the dark, hiding under desks.’

The police were looking for someone they believed had a gun. Our whole school was put on lockdown, no one was sure what was happening. We had no idea if our school was being shot up or if everything was fine.

I thought my school’s name would be the next one in the headlines, that my friends would be among the dead and wounded. We were in the dark, hiding under desks, terrified of what would happen next. No gun was found, but that hour and a half was so beyond chaotic and terrifying.

— ‘It’s chilling.’

The Dark Overlord hacking group got personal information for almost every student in the district, including our addresses and parents’ phone numbers. They texted numerous parents, threatening to shoot up our schools.

As a result, school was canceled for one whole day while the threat was investigated, and delayed on the second day to allow time for security sweeps. It’s chilling to think how easily something like that could be orchestrated in my community. — ‘I was terrified to go to school that day.’

While a shooting has not occurred at my school, there have been threats of gun violence, and it’s almost become normal — even expected. My freshman year someone threatened to pull the fire alarm as a ploy to get students out of the building to shoot them.

I was terrified to go to school that day but my parents believed there was nothing to worry about, and while I trusted them, they didn’t feel what I felt. What they didn’t feel was the eerie silence that carried throughout the day while students breathed quietly, waiting for the ring of the fire alarm.

Instead of focusing on my biology work, I was thinking about how I would hide and where I could exit the building discreetly. Certainly, this is not what a 14-year-old high school freshman should be forced to think about.

— ‘I remember people crying and yelling.’

Multiple times, there has been either the possibility of someone having brought a gun or actually bringing one to school.

The first time, I was in a lockdown for several hours and a kid was arrested down the street for bringing a gun to school. A weapon was never found. However, many people in my class, including me, were hiding in a closet, while many didn’t take it seriously and kept doing their schoolwork.

Soon we started to see giant SWAT teams with giant guns outside our windows and we knew that something serious had happened. I remember people crying and yelling at others to be quiet. It was chaotic.

— ‘Everyone was scared.’

During my eighth grade and freshman years, various schools in my district received swatting calls periodically. When they called one school in the district, that school would go into lockdown and the rest would “shelter in place.”

It happened so often during my freshman year that, eventually, we barely paid attention when we were ordered to shelter in place, until one day our school received the threat. We went into lockdown, and everyone was scared. I remember very vividly thinking, If this is the end of my life, that’s tragic, but there’s nothing I can do about it. — ‘Kids want to get out of taking finals.’

We have never had a shooting at our school; however, we have had an individual walk onto campus with a gun. We have also had threats on numerous occasions, mainly around the time final exams roll around — kids want to get out of taking finals and enjoy seeing the reaction they can elicit from the school.

— ‘There was heavy police presence at the dance.’

A shooting has never occurred at my school, but we received a threat before our homecoming dance and there was heavy police presence at the dance.

— ‘Two visibly armed men were walking down the street.’

During my sophomore year, we had a lockdown because of reports from passing drivers that two visibly armed men were walking down the street, toward the school, carrying high capacity rifles.

This year, my senior year, we relocated to a school in a different neighborhood while our original school is being rebuilt. One day, we heard a rapid succession of gunshots from an adjacent street. We went into lockdown, but the source of the gunfire was never found. — ‘I get a horrible feeling.’

When we have been put into a lockdown because of the slightest threat, I get a horrible feeling — like what if this is real and these are my last moments on Earth? It almost sounds cliché, but I have truly wondered at all the things I’d never experience if I died at that moment. I cannot imagine how much more traumatizing an actual event would be.

— ‘A lot of us think that we’re invincible.’

A lot of us think that we’re invincible, that the things that happen on the news take place in a world separate from our own. But there was a period when a bunch of schools in my county were receiving bomb threats from a robotic caller. Our school received one via email. My parents got an email from the school about it and were assured that the threat wasn’t serious. Most of us students didn’t know about it until we got home.