By Kit Epstein ’17

On Friday, March 24 at 12:30 p.m, Darien High School, located 14 miles south of Staples, went on lockdown after multiple threats of a shooting were found in writing in the boys’ bathroom.

According to The Darien News, there were two different threats written on the bathroom wall. The first message was found on Wednesday, March 23 and read, “do not come to school on 3/23.” The second message, which was found on Friday, March 24 and resulted in the lockdown, read, “gonna shoot the school per. 6. B ready.”

“As I sat there, I was really scared. Although I knew it could’ve just been protocol due to some boys horrible choice of a prank, just the possibility of a real threat made me really uneasy,” Kitty Crosby, a Darien High School senior, said of the lockdown. “I called my dad and told him I wanted to go home.”

According to Darien Times, Superintendent of Darien Public Schools Dan Brenner released a statement later that afternoon. His statement read, “It has come to our attention that there was a rumor that a gun was present at school today. Please be assured that these incidents have been found to have no substance and that there was no threat present at any time.”

On Feb. 16, Staples High School performed a lockdown drill in order to be prepared for possible threatening situations, like threats of a shooter.

“I think it’s positive that we had a lockdown drill so recently,” Noah Lomnitz ’17 said. “It’s hard to predict what’s going to happen in those situations and how to react when something serious happens.”

The Darien lockdown lasted 22 minutes and was lifted after the police department deemed the school safe.

One Darien High School student recalled the moments after the lockdown was lifted. “They let us go to our next class and didn’t inform us about what was happening despite a ton of cops showing up,” Maddie Corman, a DHS senior, said.

According to News 12 Connecticut, Darien Police is currently investigating surveillance footage in order to identify the student who wrote the messages on the bathroom wall.

“I realized that this isn’t a unique situation. I thought of how other students in America have been in my very situation, but sadly, their threat was real, and devastating,” Crosby said.

Darien High School will resume a normal schedule on Monday, March 27.