Police have lifted a lockdown order at a Hamilton high school after investigating threats made to the school Monday morning.
Students were trapped in classrooms for about four hours Monday as tactical units meticulously went through the school to ensure that there was no threat.
“The officers were in the school very, very quickly and doing their job to ensure the safety of all the students, but it is a methodical process to be able to clear the school and say that it is 100 per cent safe and we want to be able to say that before we start bringing the students out of the school and reuniting them with their parents,” Supt. Will Mason of Hamilton police told reporters after the lockdown was lifted.
According to Mason, the school received several phone calls indicating a threat shortly before 8 a.m.
Police responded and the school was placed on lockdown just as buses started arriving. Those buses were diverted away from the school, but many students were already inside the building when the lockdown went into effect.
“It is a very large school and there are a great number of students there which obviously makes moving through it a fairly slow and methodical process,” Mason said.
The lockdown was lifted at around 12:30 p.m. after police said no evidence was found to support the threats.
Police did not say exactly what the threat was, however Mason said they will continue to investigate until a charge is laid.
“What I can say is that we will put a great number of resources behind the scenes into catching the perpetrator of this threat,” Mason said. “We will not close the investigation until we have concluded it by laying a charge.”
Nobody was injured in the incident.
Police said parents are now free to pick up their children at the rear of the building.
