‘LOCKDOWN LOCKDOWN!’ the announcements screamed, trying to keep their students safe from such an unpredicted incident. Students rushed to the corners of their classrooms for safety as loud bangs filled the halls.

On October 6th, a student got into some complications, leading up to the horrible incident of a school shooting. Not only did Timberview go on a lockdown, but so did several surrounding schools like the Ben Barber Innovation Academy and Legacy High School. Lake Ridge, however, was excluded from the mix since it was seen as so far away. Chief of Arlington police, Alexander Jones, says that getting the shooter into custody was a fast process, making it safe for students once again.

“We went through the building, classroom by classroom, to make sure that we got every student out. I can tell you that working with Mansfield ISD and the intelligence they shared with us that day, we were able to get the suspect in custody within four to five hours,” stated Jones.

Lake Ridge considered itself to be in a lockout, meaning that no one could come in or go out. However, due to the fear that filled both students and parents that day, the parents of Lake Ridge rushed to pick up their children. Their worry might’ve been the only thing going through their heads, but many people can agree that it was too easy to get in and out of a school that was said to be on lockout. Director of safety and security, Bruno Dias, claims that the amount of information that was given determined what security measures the schools would go under.

“We had a lot of information about who was responsible for the incident that day. We used that information to decide which campuses should go into a secure lockdown or just simply reduce outside activity. Again, this was a situation where we were looking for multiple people and were getting a lot of real time information from Arlington police and other police agencies,” stated Dias.

The issue is, Jones says the gun was found at the shooter’s sister’s home. According to the Dallas Star Telegram, his sister’s home is on England Parkway which is approximately 1.9 miles away from Lake Ridge and its surrounding schools. Lake Ridge still did not go on a lock down due to the lack of information they were receiving from both the police and the district. Dias says that when it comes to district wide lockdowns, it’s better so that more panic isn’t caused.

“We have to wait, we cause more fear by doing a district wide lockdown measure in 92 and a half square miles. We have a lot of schools in a broad region, and we rely on the intelligence that we had that day regarding the direction of travel and potential locations where the suspects could travel to,” stated Dias.

When people hear about incidents similar to October 6th, they rarely ever consider that they’ll be a part of something like this. With this, the Mansfield district is attempting to further improve their safety procedures. Dias says that he visits schools and evaluates the safest and fastest ways for these types of incidents.
“We’re doing something that we call a physical security assessment. I go to a campus, I evaluate the risks, and I identify risks. I offer them a roadmap to make corrections to elevate their safety and security posture. The state requires us to do this every three years, we’re doing this on a continuous basis,” stated Dias.

The concerns that polluted the air the day of the incident, the families of Lake Ridge worried about what would happen next. The lack of a lockdown could have risked something further for Lake Ridge and its neighboring schools. The gun was in close proximity to the school, making it even riskier for the schools to not go on lockdown