SAN ANTONIO – Just as classes began Thursday morning at a Northeast Side school, parents showed up and demanded to take their children home after they heard the school was placed on lockdown.
San Antonio police said they responded just before 8 a.m. to IDEA Public Schools’ Judson campus in response to reports of a student with a firearm.
Officers began searching the building while a helicopter and drone flew overhead, but a crowd of parents, guardians and family members formed outside the campus’s iron gates.
Art Guillermo was one of those family members, leaving work in a rush to pick up his grandchild.
“I just took off over here right away. I was going to stay and couldn’t concentrate,” Guillermo said. “We’re just worried that she’s scared out of her mind.”
Eddie Bilbraut said he could tell something was off when he dropped his daughter off at school minutes before, but said staff members did not tell him what it was.
“Why are (they) not telling me, ‘Don’t leave your kid,’ ‘Take your kid with you?’” he told KSAT 12.
Raquel Bilbraut was also upset with what she described as a lack of details about the incident, saying the emails were too vague.
“That doesn’t tell me anything,” she said, after reading a paragraph from the email aloud. “You’re letting our children into the school when you already suspect something is going on? That’s ridiculous!”
As parents worried outside, Jayden Pendilla said he began to spiral inside his classroom.
“When I realized it got real, they started barricading the doors. And I was, like, ‘Ok.’ Then I started to pray a little bit,” he said. “I was texting my parents, my friends, ‘If today is my time, if I might die,’ I texted my friends, ‘Thank you for being there for me.’”
Shortly after 10:30 a.m., a lieutenant announced the building had been cleared. He said no weapons were found and no injuries were reported.
While an IDEA Public Schools spokesperson told KSAT all students would be dismissed for the day, it took nearly an hour following the all-clear for students to begin being released.
The San Antonio Police Department said it is still investigating the incident, and is not yet able to say whether anyone will face criminal charges in this case.
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