Lockdown over at Chaska High School; classes canceled for the day

    Article by: KELLY SMITH and PAUL WALSH , Star Tribune staff writers
    Updated: January 8, 2013 - 2:57 PM

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Chaska High School was in lockdown mode with police cars blocking all entrances. As the students were being released and the buses were leaving the school this Chaska police officer was monitoring the situation while carrying an assault rifle.

Photo: Richard Sennott, Star Tribune



A threat Tuesday morning targeting Chaska High School prompted a lockdown that lasted most of the morning and prompted classes to be canceled for the day.

In a series of messages on Twitter that started shortly after 8 a.m., the school said "CHS received a threat this morning, we have taken it seriously and are now working with police."

"Everyone is OK," a tweet reported.

Police guarded both entrances of the school and about a dozen parents were parked nearby, many texting their children inside.

The rerouted buses went to nearby Pioneer Ridge Middle School as a police sweep of the high school and parking lot came up empty, said School District spokesman Brett Johnson.

At about 10:45 a.m., one of the school's entrances was reopened, and parents were seen heading toward the building to pick up their children.

Instruction was called off for the day "because of the disruption" that the threat caused, a tweet said. Afternoon sports and other activities will proceed as scheduled.

"It's a scary feeling. You see all this stuff happening" with recent mass shootings, said Wendy Eckstrom, who lives in Waconia and was texting with her daughter, Kelsey, a junior.

Police inspected vehicles in the parking lot, and Kelsey told her mom she could see a SWAT team.

Some parents said they were upset that they did not get a phone call from the school, which sent e-mails about the lockdown soon after it began.

Freshman Bailey Van Eyll said she and others in the school of about 1,250 students were immediately ushered into a computer lab after arriving at school. Van Eyll and her classmates sat silently on the floor in the dark for three hours, texting updates to their parents until getting the OK to leave.

"We thought it was a drill, but it was real," she said. "We were all scared. I don't really know what happened."

The threat was received before school started, Johnson said. He declined to reveal details, adding, "We're concerned about copycat things."

Paul Walsh • 612-673-4482

Kelly Smith • 612-673-4141