The individual who created the need for a soft lockdown, as principals described it, at the schools in Fillmore talked about a school shooting the morning of an assembly at Millard High School.
A female student at MHS said that she overheard somebody at a gas station. She wasn’t sure if the person, an adult male, said there could be a school shooting or if there “was going to be” a school shooting, MHS Princial Derrick Dearden told the Millard County Chronicle Progress.
“I said, ‘that’s a huge difference,’” Dearden reported telling the young woman.
The Millard County Sheriff’s Office said on Facebook that the school resource officer was told as he was starting work, just minutes before the assembly, that there would be a shooting at that assembly, which was for homecoming.
A week ago, the person, who police claimed is “unknown,” told a “young sales clerk” that he was “waiting to shoot a school,” according to the Facebook post.
For the soft lockdowns, which took place at Millard High School, Fillmore Middle School and Fillmore Elementary School, exterior doors were locked Thursday morning, Bassett said, and classes inside proceeded as normal, Dearden said.
(A lockdown involves lights going dark and students staying in their classrooms, among other factors, Bassett said.)
Pointing north of the high school, Dearden said the young woman heard the individual at a Chevron "by" Paradise Golf Course. The one nearest the golf course is 1.7 miles away; another, 2.1 miles.
The Chronicle Progress asked Dearden was asked about which gas station it was, and he said he went to the school resource officer, who did not provide that information.
Police obtained cameras from the Chevron and contacted the person, Dearden said.
Four officers were at MHS at about 12:20 p.m. Thursday. Three to six others had been at the school, Dearden said, and three were at Fillmore Middle School, FMS Principal Matt Bassett said around 12:40 p.m.
Fillmore Elementary School Principal Harold Robison did not comment.
On the FMS building, “we’re not letting people enter or leave,” Bassett said.
On MHS, “(students) are just not allowed to exit the building without an adult,” Dearden said.
Bassett talked about parents who did take their children out of school, though he did not mention a man doing so with a girl just after 12:30 p.m. Thursday.
FMS students did recess inside, playing on Chromebooks the school owns, Bassett said.
“The majority of them are ready for an inside break,” said Bassett, a first-year principal. "I don't think they were too put off ... with spending time inside with a Chromebook."
Dearden talked about the female student’s report of what she heard from the individual in question after disputing a remark from a young woman being taken out of school who said “Somebody told me they saw a guy by the seminary building.” An LDS seminary building is adjacent to the school.
Bassett said FMS would be closed through the end of last Thursday. MHS said in a Facebook post at approximately 1:30 p.m. that day that a homecoming activity that evening would take place as planned, besides all other homecoming functions and the associated football game, which took place.
The lockdowns went into effect about 8:30 a.m. Thursday at the high school and about 9:30 a.m. at the middle school, Dearden and Bassett, respectively, said.
Dearden said the incident and individual is not associated with a 17-year-old male who allegedly threatened a school shooting this month at Delta High School, as first reported by the Chronicle Progress.
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