By Daniel Katzive + WSR Staff
An Upper West Side school was put on lockdown Thursday morning after a bogus call about somebody having a gun in the building, according to police.
The Louis D. Brandeis High School at 145 West 84th Street, between Columbus and Amsterdam avenues, was put on a lockdown around 11 a.m., after somebody called police saying a person had a gun inside, police said.
After a massive NYPD response, including 84th Street being shut off to traffic and heavily armed police officers and a dog searching the school building, NYPD confirmed around 11:40 a.m. that the report of a gun was unfounded, and the lockdown had been lifted.
Students were then let out of the building shortly after, as parents anxiously waited behind barricades on either side of the school.
Alarmed parents also gathered outside P.S. 9/Sarah Anderson School, which is across 84th Street from Brandeis High School. The entrance to the elementary school was just inside of the police cordon, but administrators emerged from the school and reassured parents that all was fine inside.
“Everyone is safe. The kids are learning,” they said.
Parents on the Brandeis side of the street had less communication, and one mother grew agitated, loudly berating school safety officers and demanding that the kids be let out.
One group of students had left early for lunch but returned when they saw the news of the lockdown on the Citizens App and waited by the police line for updates. One of the kids shouted to an NYPD Inspector leaving the scene, “in actual fact officer, what’s going on in there?”
“Nothing,” he replied. “They think a hoax.”
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PS9 was also on lockdown for a while. Having a bunch of little kids told something scary is happening is not ideal – they are much more impressionable – I wish your article had focused on them a bit more. PS9’s administration handled this as well as possible.
I am all for being safe out of an abundance of caution. But this is very frustrating.
Also helpful would be reminding us if Brandeis has metal detectors. I believe it does but I’m not sure.
Thanks NRA! When can this national nightmare be over so there are fewer guns around so that this is no longer something we have to worry about. Bloomberg is passionate about this and could easily outspend the NRA by himself – I wish he would do that, particularly if hopefully Dems can get majorities and the white house in November.
I hate the NRA as much as any liberal UWSer but I’m not sure how they are to blame in this situation. There was no gun.
1) Do you have evidence kids were told something scary? Educators are trained on communicating crises to students.
2) Brandeis has metal detectors
3) The NRA existed for 120 years before the first school shooting. It ain’t them.
It is them. The NRA changed RADICALLY over the past 30 years. It went from being a gun safety organization to (under the corruption of Wayne LaPierre) being an organization that invoked fear about the Second Amendment and a shill propaganda arm for gun manufacturers. There have been many an article about it. LaPierre was caught by his own membership scamming dough and perks from the organization and they threw him out.
1. Administrators handled it perfectly. But kids are smart – they knew something bad was happening – they didn’t know details but they knew enough. Kids were not happy they couldn’t go out for recess on a perfect day. Again – admins handled it perfectly and I would have done the exact same thing. But it is a shame it happened.
2. Thank you for confirming.
3. The NRA is why there is such a proliferation of guns. If they weren’t so ubiquitous, the odds of such an event would be much lower. Not that hard to figure out. They are not the sole ones responsible. But they are a huge part of it. Shutting them down and getting some very basic legislation passed would help – guns are everywhere and likely not going anywhere so we would still have a big problem on our hands, but any way we can slow it down helps.
It’s not all the NRA – there are many sad things behind how guns in schools have become something we fear. But, starting in the 80s (or earlier?) the NRA transformed from being a gun safety and shooting sports org, to taking manufacturer’s money for lobbying based on communicating gun rights propaganda (co-opting the 2nd amendment to their cause) and fear-mongering about criminals and self defense – which made a lot of money for manufacturers, so they doubled down and hired Charles Heston, and became a hugely feared lobby. Yeah, they are due some blame. A “Membership” organization that becomes a bullhorn for for-profit manufacturers by buying politicians and scaring voters? Not what I’d call a good influence. The business of fooling/selling enough of the people, just enough of the time to get what you want, is very big business. You don’t have to have a gun to be afraid of school shoutings. And we would not have to be afraid of school shootings if so many people didn’t have unsafe/unregulated access to so very many guns. That access, and that lack of safety is down to the NRA in a very direct way.
Thank goodness the high school wasn’t a place where there is delayed, inadequate, or no action in response to a gun report.
We can thank the NYC police for their well-organized and prompt response.
I can’t tell if this is sarcastic given the very messy and highly publicized events taking place with the NYPD this week.
Whatever the other issues going on with the NYPD, from what I hear, their response to THIS event (which ended well but had a potential for absolute awfulness for so many involved) was good and timely and overall well-organized. They deserve credit for what they did right, even if they can still face critic for the things they are not doing right and that need remediation.
Exactly, credit them for what they do right, and criticize them for what they do wrong, like stop and frisk, and illegal searches, and sometimes killing people like Eric Garner.
I certainly did not write it as sarcasm; it is sincere.
Kudos to the NYPD Commissioner . . . .. oh wait, he just resigned!
Hi Daniel – I know it’s confusing but The Anderson School is on W 77th street. On W 84th it’s called PS9 Sarah Anderson. PS9 is not The Anderson School.
Fixed, thank you!
Yes, that campus has metal detectors
What about the other school George Washington HS further uptown that also saw a heavy police presence earlier the same morning about a student posting on his SM that he was going to shoot up the school? I didn’t see reports about this but I was leaving for work and saw all the commotion and asked about it. What happened in this case? Hoax too? Why don’t we know about this case?
I hope they find who made this call and why. While of course I am relieved that there was no gun, these calls are no laughing matters, and even calling them a ‘hoax’ is a euphemism in my view. It is a terrorizing call to make, and does real damage, with real impact on real people, and with real re-traumatization to any who’d been under fire before, or know someone who was. If this turns out to be a deliberate lie, the person who did this ought to face real consequences. Also, I appreciate how information to parents matters, and how it is often a challenge to not give out half-baked information that can then be proven wrong, and yet to not keep caregivers in the dark at a time when they absolutely NEED information. Sigh.
Agreed. I don’t think terms like “hoax” or “bogus” are helpful here, as they undermine the very real feelings that parents, students, and school staff felt in those hours.
horrendous
My kids’ school several blocks away from Brandeis was also put on lockdown as a precaution. If this was in fact a hoax/prank rather than a genuine mistake, the perpetrator should face consequences for wasting police time and resources as well as causing distress to hundreds of children and parents across multiple schools.
The city should seek heavy jail time for whoever did this.
I would find out exactly what happened. If it was truly a hoax, then I agree – throw the book at them. But if someone really thought they saw something, then better safe than sorry – people shouldn’t be afraid to call something in if they legitimately think they saw something. Better safe than sorry.
That building houses 3 or 4 separate high schools and a Success Academy elementary school. It’s a busy campus. Brandeis High School closed in 2012.