Thread: TX: Garden Park Elementary Lockdown: Parents and neighbors w

Garden Park Elementary Lockdown: Parents and neighbors welcome strong response from authorities
Comments 1

April 22, 2010 7:17 PM
By ILDEFONSO ORTIZ, The Brownsville Herald

Maria Torres arrived at Garden Park Elementary near Thursday afternoon to pick up her son for a doctor’s appointment, but instead found the school building locked down and surrounded by law enforcement authorities.

"I got very scared. They wouldn’t let me get close," Torres said.

The school was placed on lockdown at 11:05 a.m. Thursday, while U.S. Border Patrol agents and Brownsville police searched for a man believed to be an undocumented immigrant, said Drue Brown, spokeswoman for the Brownsville Independent School District.

The school sits at the edge of the Rio Grande, next to the U.S.-Mexico border wall.

Torres eventually was allowed to get her son, a first-grader at the school, about an hour and half later.

"I don’t know what happened but I’m happy they took the necessary precautions to keep the children safe," the mother said.

Brown said the school was placed on emergency lockdown after school administrators found an unknown man inside the school and escorted him to the office of the school principal, Victor Caballero. Caballero determined the man had no reason to be on campus and escorted him off the grounds.

After he escorted the stranger off campus, Caballero then contacted BISD police, Brownsville Police and the U.S. Border Patrol, Brown said.

Border Patrol agents arrived at the school to look for the man outside the school, hoping to determine if he was an undocumented immigrant. But when the agents arrived, the man had fled and they began a search, said Joe Treviño, supervisory Border Patrol agent.

Several Border Patrol SUVs and Brownsville police patrol cars were seen around the school searching for the man.

Agents did not go inside the school but searched around homes, through nearby brush area and even looked inside dumpsters in an effort to locate him.

Some school employees inside the building during the lockdown reported hearing helicopters. However, Treviño said no air support was deployed for the search, and that while the school was locked down, a commercial airplane did fly over the school, possibly creating the confusion.

Search efforts were a welcome sight for Doroteo Perez, who lives across from the school with his wife and two daughters. The family regularly sees Border Patrol agents patrolling the area.

Perez arrived at his house to find Border Patrol agents and Brownsville police officers in his yard, searching for the stranger.

"I told them to please go inside my house and check," Perez said. "They went in with their machine guns looking for that guy, but he wasn’t there. I’m glad they went inside. You never know. (Undocumented immigrants) can be nice people or they can have bad intentions. I’m actually thinking of buying a firearm for the house ... It’s better to be safe."

The school remained under lockdown for the remainder of the school day as a precautionary measure, and parents received a letter informing them of the lockdown, Brown said.

"We weren’t able to locate the subject, so we were not able to determine if he was indeed undocumented," Treviño said. "Many times, the presence of law enforcement in the area serves as a deterrent. Hopefully, that is the case in this area."

www.brownsvilleherald.com

Rats. He got away. Maybe next time the school will call the police and Border Patrol before they let him go.

Oh, wait, aren't they creating a police state? Where are the illegal protesters to picket the school. RAAAACISM.

"They went in with their machine guns looking for that guy

Is this guy exaggerating? I've never heard of police using machine guns but then I'm not into guns either. It just sounds fishy to me.