Did he fire anything???

The last kid to do something like this here was after Columbine....he is in jail for a looooong time. It was not taken lightly.

If anyone is looking to Rob a bank...right now would be good every police officer within 100 miles is at the school.

will do...they switched bands on the scanner so we arent getting much anymore.

by the way, Feel better Sparky!

Police arrest teen for false reporting in Central lockdown
By Journal staff
RAPID CITY n It never happened.


There was never a gunman at Rapid City Central High School this morning after all, Rapid City Police Capt. Ed Hofkamp now says. A 15-year-old student at the school has admitted to investigators to fabricating the story of seeing a gunman in the Central parking lot, Hofkamp said.

The information he gave was false, he said. It did not occur. There was never a gunman in the school. There was never any risk to the students.

Hofkamp released the information to reporters shortly after 1 p.m., following more than three hours of intense law-enforcement action at Central and a lock-down of all schools in town.

Hofkamp said the 15-year-old student, who has been arrested for false reporting, gave the information to a security guard at the school, which resulted in a call to police.

Officers for the police department, Pennington County Sheriffs Office, state Division of Criminal Investigation and South Dakota Game, Fish & Parks Department were among those who responded to secure the building at Central, search for a gunman and, class by class, move students to the nearby Rushmore Plaza Civic Center.

Officers also rushed to Grandview Elementary School in the southern part of town, following a vague report of shots being fired. Hofkamp said the report was probably a phony, too.

Asked how much the response to the hoaxes cost, Hofkamp said: I would hesitate to respond, but its quite a bit. This is what we do in public service.

The phony report by the 15-year-old also led police to release a description of the alleged suspect: He was described as being an American Indian male, about 5-foot-8 and 160 pounds, wearing a white hooded sweatshirt and blue jeans.

Police received the report at about 9:45 a.m. and responded

within two minutes. Teams surrounded Central High School at about 9:50 a.m.

The building was locked down, and police, sheriffs deputies and officers with the local strategic response team were stationed at the entrances to the school and on the grounds around the building.

Hofkamp reported that all students were safe at 10:40 a.m.

Authorities also responded to a report of shots being fired at Grandview Elementary School, in the southern part of town. Hofkamp said officers there couldnt confirm the report of shots being fired.

At this point, we consider that a malicious call, he said.

Response team members had released about 20 classes from Central High School by noon and were continuing to release other classes as the building was searched. Students were taken across Eighth Street from Central to the Rushmore Plaza Civic Center.

Hofkamp said the civic center had been secured prior to moving the students there.

Hofkamp said police received a call about the supposed gunman at about 9:45 a.m.

Harry Brenden, assistant superintendent, said it was a student who reported seeing an individual with a gun in the Central High School parking lot.

A nine-person special response team of personnel from the police department, sheriffs office and state Division of Criminal Investigation was sent into the school, Hofkamp said.

Theyve been trained specifically for this type of situation, he said.

A student inside the building, senior Ben Ericks, said that he and the rest of his government class were lying on the floor.

He said school officials called a lockdown during a passing period between classes. Ericks said school officials reported that there was someone in the building with a handgun but that the person had left.

Ericks said at 10:25 a.m. that they hadnt heard anything for about 15 minutes.

Were just chilling on the floor, Ericks said.

Another student, senior Anthony Curtis, used his cell phone to text message his mother, Marsha Pluth, to say that the school had just turned off the lights about 10:11 a.m. and school officials asked all the students to stay quiet and wait.

Authorities established an area in the nearby Albertsons supermarket parking lot for parents.

Pluth began to relax after she learned from her son that he had been taken to the civic center. But the reported gunman and lockdown touched on one of her greatest fears.

Every day I go to school and see all those kids going in and it scares the heck out of me, she said. It always makes me wonder, which one of them is having a bad day?

At about 11 a.m., authorities were leading students from the school across Eighth Street to the west side of the civic center.

Hofkamp said authorities were taking all possible precautions to assure the safety of the students and school personnel.

We dont want to make any errors, he said.

Authorities locked down other schools in the district as a precaution.

Numerous calls from worried parents were received throughout the morning as news of the school lockdowns swept through the city. As the main law-enforcement effort focused on Central, a second team of about 20 officers converged on Grandview.

Shortly after 11 a.m. an unmarked police car sped up to Grandview School, and two officers got out and approached the school, rounding a corner of the building with guns drawn.

Eventually about 20 officers were on the scene, some with either rifles or shotguns.

At about 11:45 a.m. a sheriffs deputy said the building was safe. And soon after that, sheriffs office investigator Mark Alley walked out of the building and across the playground to tell parents their children would be released.

He also said police had entered the building forcefully.

Ill have to apologize to the lunch lady, because I pretty much tackled her, Alley said.

The commotion didnt seem to shake 5-year-old Braden Huehl, however.

We had to sit down, he said after being released from the school. We got to rest our legs a lot.

I agree totally...fifteen or not...he made a huge mistake and needs to pay for it.

I would love to see him have to attend funerals for all of the people in Virginia to see what pain is about...and then depending on how he reacts...decide a punishment.

We actually had a classroom held up when I was in 9th grade, that guy is still in prision and its been about 15 years.

NOT AS OLD AS YOU!

WEB...Just remember what goes around comes around....Mr Bifocals.

Lockdown focus shifts to juvenile court
By Kevin Woster, Journal staff
RAPID CITY The 15-year-old who shut down schools throughout the city Tuesday morning with a false report of a parking-lot gunman at Rapid City Central High School now faces criminal charges in juvenile court.


Because of his age, its unlikely the public will ever officially know who he is or what punishment he receives. But the impact of his trumped-up tale about seeing an armed person in the school parking lot gave school and law-enforcement officials a surprise test in emergency-response protocols.

After the teen told a school security officer that he saw a male with a gun in the Central parking lot just after 9:30 a.m., school officials locked down the building, and law enforcement officers swarmed around the school.

Police searched the high school, then evacuated the students across Mount Rushmore Road North to Rushmore Plaza Civic Center. All other public schools in the city were locked down until 12:10 p.m.

The overwhelming response by law-enforcement officers and emergency crews was expensive, disruptive and nerve-wracking to parents who clustered in jittery groups near locked-down schools. But Capt. Ed Hofkamp of the Rapid City Police Department said he didnt consider it money, manpower or energy wasted.

Does it bother us? My answer is that Im glad no one was injured, he said. The ultimate goal in any of these situations is to protect lives. Thats just what occurred today. It was a false report, but everybody went home OK.

That wasnt entirely true, however, of the student perpetrating the hoax. He was arrested and sent to juvenile detention. Hofkamp wasnt sure Tuesday afternoon when the juvenile would be released.

The student is arrested, and hell be placed in our juvenile services center pending juvenile court action, Hofkamp said. Hell be charged with false reporting and disruption of school.

For an adult, that charge would likely be a Class 1 misdemeanor punishable by up to one year in jail and a $1,000 fine. But the juvenile court system works differently, both in its secretive nature and the way it imposes punishment.

In fact, its technically not considered punishment at all. Its supposed to be rehabilitation, South Dakota Attorney General Larry Long said Tuesday afternoon.

It has more of a singular focus than the adult system, and the more singular focus is rehabilitation, Long said. And thats almost the only focus. The theory is that this child can be rehabilitated before he becomes an adult and the focus of the system changes.

The system considers part of that rehabilitation to be protecting the juvenile offender from the glare of public scrutiny and ridicule, Long said. Except for rare cases involving the most serious of crimes, juvenile offenders are granted a shield of anonymity that closes proceedings and protects their names and punishment or chosen rehabilitation techniques. Long said its unlikely the identity or adjudication of this juvenile will ever be officially revealed.

In some cases, judges and probation officers in the juvenile system use a form of diversion called informal adjustment. In some cases that dont involve serious crime, the juvenile could just get probation that, when successfully served, could mean removal of even the juvenile record.

The case is never filed, and its like it never happened, Long said. I dont think thats likely in this case. If hed called in a scare and then turned himself in five minutes later, it might have been different.

The student reported seeing someone with a gun in the parking lot about 9:45 a.m. As investigators questioned the student through the morning, his story seemed less plausible, Hofkamp said.

Finally, during questioning at the police station, the student confessed to the lie, Hofkamp said. That led authorities to remove the lockdown that had been imposed first on Central High School and then other schools across town.

But before that, the hoax prompted a response by scores of law enforcement officers, including the police, Pennington County Sheriffs Office, South Dakota Highway Patrol, South Dakota Game, Fish & Parks and federal officials including the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. The Rapid City Fire Department also responded with fire and medical crews, and the state Division of Criminal Investigation had agents on standby.

About 20 officers also responded to Grandview Elementary School after a report of sounds like gunshots. After the school was checked and students were released to their parents, Hofkamp said the report was likely a malicious call.

Later, a school official said the Grandview report apparently resulted from someone mistaking the sound of a nail gun on a nearby construction project for gunshots.

The lockdowns were maintained until early afternoon, when authorities determined there was no threat to students. Hofkamp said the hoax turned out to be a real test of emergency response to a potentially life-threatening situation at a school that will help sharpen the system in case of a real threat in the future.

Even for us to go through this scenario today was a very intense practice, he said. Well be holding debriefings now with different agencies to determine if there were things we could have done better and ways we can try to be prepared if something like this could ever happen, Hofkamp said.

Many parents of students at Central High School praised the response Tuesday. Some parents for elementary school students elsewhere thought it might have been overboard and wondered why they couldnt pick up their kids sooner.

Watching reports of the standoff and its resolution from Sioux Falls, Minnehaha County Sheriff Mike Milstead concluded that authorities in Rapid City responded appropriately. That was especially so considering the shooting of 32 people by a gunman at Virginia Tech University on Monday, Milstead said.

In addition, Friday will be the eighth anniversary of the infamous school shooting at a high school in Littleton, Colo., where two students shot and killed 12 students and a teacher before shooting themselves.

I think law enforcement and schools across the nation are at a higher state of alert because of all that. We know that sometimes an incident like that can prompt copy cats, Milstead said.

Especially in a situation that involves the lives of many students and staff members gathered together in confined areas, authorities must respond quickly and decisively as they apparently did in Rapid City, Milstead said.

The response has to be immediate; it has to be substantial; and its certainly going to disrupt the students day. But its 100 percent geared for their safety, he said. And should there be an actual gunman in the school, these responses are geared for their (students) survival.

Milsteads office has supplied security for the Southeast Area Technical Institute in Sioux Falls, since 2001 after an earlier incident of a gunman reported on campus. Authorities searched the school but never found anyone with a gun, Milstead said.

The incident intensified security measures at the technical school.

People who feel tempted to second-guess the size and scope of the response to the Central High School hoax should consider how they might have felt if the threat had been real, Milstead said.

If nothing happens, theyre doing too much. But if something bad happens, they didnt do enough, he said.

If the incident in Rapid City had had a totally different outcome, and had a gunman actually been at the school and if lives had been taken, I dont think anyone would ask if they overreacted.