Kids safe after shots fired near metro Atlanta school; some parents are still worried
Some parents say it sent their hearts racing when they learned someone fired shots near their children’s school as they played outside. The school had to go into a soft lockdown.
It happened Tuesday at Roberta T. Smith Elementary in Rex on Highway 42. Students were on the school’s playground when they heard the shots from a neighborhood nearby.
“Knowing that it was that close, it really bothers me a lot,” said parent Ray Joy.
Joy says his fifth-grader gave him a blow-by-blow account of what happened.
“My kids came home and told me that it was scary and they started running in the school and stuff like that,” he said.
Another parent said her fifth-grader was traumatized after he was rushed back in the school and told to hide under a desk.
“It’s very scary as a parent to know that your child had to hide under a desk when you think, in school, they’re so safe,” said parent Yuliana Pineda, whose second-grader attends the school.
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Clayton County Schools says the school went on a soft lockdown. It says staff quickly got the kids inside. One parent says her fifth-grader said her teachers locked the doors and covered windows.
“It was more like pow, pow, pow,” said Charles Manning, who works at a day care near the school.
“I just heard some shots off into the woods. I thought somebody was hunting,” he told Channel 2′s Tom Jones.
Teachers and students had no idea where the bullets were going, or who was the intended target. They just knew to get everyone to safety.
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Parent Ray Joy says this doesn’t leave him with a good feeling.
“It really makes me frightened for my kids safety,” he said.
The school system says staff followed safety protocols and the school remained on lockdown until school police arrived to investigate. A school spokesperson did not say if police were able to determine who fired the shots.
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