El Paso police say Bel Air High School safe after unconfirmed report of a person with a gun

El Paso police declared Bel Air High School safe Thursday afternoon after an unconfirmed report of a person with a gun caused a scare at the campus Thursday afternoon.

The school at 731 N. Yarbrough Drive in the Lower Valley went into a precautionary security lockdown in response to the report.

Police searched the school, but the report of a person with a gun was not confirmed, police spokesman Sgt. Enrique Carrillo said at a news conference.

"Every classroom and every building on campus is being cleared," Carrillo said. "We have teams clearing that."

He said, "At this point, we know that officers responded to a subject with a gun call in the campus, actually in the school building."

The incident began at about 1:15 p.m. when a text message began circulating about an  armed person in or around the school.

"As a reminder, there has been NO CONFIRMED INCIDENT and it all came from a text message," a police media message said.

Carrillo said the rumor "spread through text and social media like wildfire."

Police and other law enforcement agencies surrounded the campus and helped in the room-by-room search.

A parent staging area was set up at Santa Monica Court and Venado Drive behind the school, police said.

Sandra Martinez, whose 16-year-old son Andy Martinez attends Bel Air, said he told her about the scare 20 minutes before she was notified by the school.

During the incident, she said she was concerned for her son's safety.

"The cops say that there's nobody, even the school already sent out like 15 minutes ago that they have lifted the lockdown, but the lockdown has not been lifted," she said as the search was ongoing. "So I mean, that's a lot of miscommunications to parents, that they're not gonna actually hear. And I also heard that they said that the kids were being released but they have not. So, I don't know where all those things are coming from."

She said she heard word of the incident while at work.

She said her boss told her things were all right, that the school had been cleared, but she said after arriving that wasn't reflected yet at the campus.

"One thing I do know for sure is that he's not coming back to school," she said. "I, honestly, I don't know which is the last day, but a lot of people are commenting like there's no need for them to be back. Finals are over, school is over. Projects can wait, so we're just gonna — I'm not sending him back. Yeah, yeah. Probably not till next year."

Many parents in line were signing their children out. Others could wait until 4 p.m., when all the remaining students were going to be released.

The scare spread through social media and text, police said.

He said he understood parents' concern.

"We completely understand and they should be concerned," Carrillo said. "And that's the reason for the large response, for the large law enforcement agency response. Because when some people may look at it as an overreaction, we don't.

"We see it as prudent. We're gonna take every call like that or any threat seriously."

He said parents would be briefed on the situation.

"We gathered them in a staging area for parents, where we're able to brief them with the information that we had. The information is evolving," he said during the incident. "At that point, when I briefed them, we informed them of what we knew, and that was that there were no confirmed sightings of any subjects. We have no credible threats that have been determined. We'll still look into that.

"But we did inform the parents that the campus would be cleared and that we would brief them with as much information as we could when we could. At that point, they were informed that there were no injuries or reports of nothing."

He said police would not give out information that was not accurate.

"So, we'll give the most accurate information that we have at hand and things change. And so, you know, at that point when the school is still being cleared, and it still is, that was what we were able to provide to them."

He said social media is "a good way of communication, but it's also a good way of miscommunicating and rumors and things spread. And so the information has to come from us. The information that they should rely on should come from school administrators, and then ... from the Police Department."

It is not uncommon for hoax threats to arise after mass shootings.

Social media threats — even if only intended as a joke — cause unnecessary stress, tie up law enforcement resources, cost taxpayer money, and suspects face criminal charges and punishment at school, law enforcement officials have said.

Residents should avoid spreading threats through the sharing of social media posts and should instead report them to law enforcement, authorities say.

Before 4 p.m., law enforcement officers began leaving and an announcement over the school intercom announced the end of the lockdown, saying, "There was no credible threat here at Bel Air High School.”

Anthony Jackson may be reached at ADJackson@elpasotimes.com and @TonyAnjackson on Twitter.

Reporter Daniel Borunda contributed to this story.

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This article originally appeared on El Paso Times: Bel Air High School safe after unconfirmed report of person with gun