Palo Alto High School administration issued a shelter-in-place in response to an alleged gun threat near campus at 11:35 a.m. this morning.
According to a message broadcasted to teachers by Principal Brent Kline’s secretary Christa Brown, staff received a student report of a man pointing a gun towards Alma Street on the walkway between Paly campus and Town and Country.
The Palo Alto Unified School District sent Paly parents a message via ParentSquare nine minutes after the initial announcement at 11:43 a.m. The message stated that students were to stay under shelter-in-place “while police investigate a report of a concern in the nearby neighborhood.”
The Palo Alto Police Department released statements investigating the matter in a thread on X around 11:55 a.m., with a preliminary description of a Hispanic male adult with tattoos on his arm.
The shelter-in-place was lifted at 12:06 p.m., and the PAPD has since released a final statement on X at 2:19 p.m. that they believe the alleged threat is unconfirmed.
“Officers located multiple adult witnesses who had observed a person matching the suspect’s description on the bike path contemporaneously to this incident,” the post said. “They all said he was waving a cell phone in his hand, not a gun. We believe the initial report is unfounded.”
Paly junior Faizan Kashmiri said he is concerned that false alarms could take away from pressing emergencies.
“People will continue to use threats of violence to get out of tests or other academic functions,” Kashmiri said. “It undermines actual threats when they do happen and when they do pose serious threats of serious harm.”
Contrarily, Paly Advanced Authentic Research and Early Childhood Development teacher Hilary McDaniel said she is grateful that administration and authorities responded promptly.
“On one hand it’s unfortunate that in this day and age, we even need to have these types of situations,” McDaniel said. “But we know our systems are working: someone saw something, there was a report, there was a response and everyone’s safe.
