Two students arrested over gun at school as sheriff, CVUSD release new details on evacuations

A day after the evacuation of three Thermal schools, the school district and sheriff's department gave more information about the chain of events, revealing for the first time that administrators didn't call police for over an hour after being told there could be a gun on campus.

A Coachella Valley Unified spokesperson also explained why parents weren't told what was happening for hours Wednesday after a lockdown and evacuations began.

Two 13-year-old students have been arrested and booked into juvenile hall on handgun charges, the Riverside County Sheriff's Department announced Thursday, adding that one admitted bringing the gun to school and the other said he hid it in a backpack for the first boy.

Other students told adults at school that they'd seen a boy with a gun at a bus stop and that he'd posted photos of himself with it on social media the day before, a sheriff's department press release said.

While searching the backpack, a deputy also found a suspicious device that looked like a grenade and turned out to be a toy.

About 3,700 students plus staff at Las Palmitas Elementary, Toro Canyon Middle and Desert Mirage High were all evacuated while the sheriff's department's Hazardous Device Team came to the middle school and bomb technicians X-rayed the object found in the backpack and deemed it safe. No one was injured.

All three schools share a complex near Tyler Street and 66th Avenue.

For hours Wednesday, neither the school district nor sheriff's department provided information to the public about why the evacuations were happening. Three parents told The Desert Sun early Wednesday afternoon they had not been contacted by the schools about the incident, but found out about the evacuations through word of mouth.

On Thursday, the school district confirmed that it sent three messages to parents via phone call, email and text in the afternoon, but the notifications did not begin until after most students had been evacuated on buses to nearby schools.

The CVUSD spokesperson, Lissette Santiago, said parents were not notified earlier in the day because “everything was an ongoing investigation,” and the school district did not learn from the sheriff’s department of the reason for the evacuation until some time after it began around 10:45 a.m.

The district's timeline

According to Santiago, a student saw a peer with a gun at their bus stop before school Wednesday morning, but that student did not report the gun to their bus driver. The student did report the gun to a school administrator shortly after arrival at Toro Canyon Middle around 9 or 9:05 a.m.

Between 9:12 and 9:15 a.m., the administrator followed district protocol and started an internal investigation into whether a student possessed a gun on campus, Santiago said.

However, law enforcement was not notified of a campus threat until about 10 a.m., Santiago said.

Santiago said district protocol requires school personnel to do an internal investigation before contacting law enforcement.

She said the first suspect interviewed by an administrator revealed no additional information.

“Everything started with rumors,” Santiago said.

She was unclear about how administrators eventually received additional information that warranted a call to the sheriff’s department.

“Once, I guess, there was more information, that’s when law enforcement was contacted to verify the findings,” Santiago said.

Deputies got a call about 10:10 a.m. and were on the scene in about 10 minutes, Sheriff Chad Bianco said Wednesday. Santiago said a lockdown at Toro Canyon began shortly after deputies arrived, when one located the handgun in a backpack near a student.

Only Toro Canyon went on lockdown initially, Santiago said. Although the three schools share a complex, each is divided by fencing. She said administrators at Las Palmitas and Desert Mirage had been notified about the ongoing investigation and ensuing lockdown at the middle school.

After the deputy reported the suspicious device, all three schools were evacuated to softball fields on the complex.

Santiago said school personnel were not told by the sheriff’s department why they had to evacuate until later in the day.

Once the evacuations were ordered around 10:45 a.m., Santiago said district personnel devised a plan to send students and staff to nearby school locations. Those from Las Palmitas were taken to Oasis Elementary, and students and staff from Toro Canyon and Desert Mirage were sent to Coachella Valley High.

Santiago said about 25 bus drivers — a third of the district's total number — made rounds driving between the schools, and the effort was slowed because the rest weren't available. Drivers typically work a split shift for morning and afternoon routes and are off the clock during the middle of the day.

Santiago was unsure how many trips it took to transport everyone.

The district’s transportation department has recently suffered from a dire bus driver shortage that has routinely caused students to run late to school or wait more than an hour at unshaded bus stops.

In total, the evacuation process took about two hours.

Lessons learned?

All of the approximately 3,700 students plus staff were evacuated on buses by around 12:40 p.m., Santiago said.

“Did we want to evacuate our students faster? Absolutely,” she said. “Was it possible? No.”

Santiago said the district had never experienced an event like this where they had to evacuate so many people.

She added that should another event like this occur, CVUSD could do better in several areas including transportation and communication.

Although neither the district nor the sheriff’s department released official information about Wednesday's events until the mid-afternoon, many students were calling and texting their families, which Santiago said spread a lot of anxiety and misinformation.

“Especially when the wrong information is communicated by anyone, it just creates more chaos,” she said.

Santiago did not say how the district would handle its communication strategy differently in the future.

Santiago said one aspect her district handled well was ensuring that meals, snacks and water were available to every student once they were safely at other school sites. She also said the district ensured all special needs students, including any with dietary restrictions and those with medical equipment, stayed safe and had their needs met.

“We had a group of nurses that were with us from the beginning who took care of those students,” Santiago said.

The first round of parent communications was sent out by the district at 12:21 p.m., Santiago said.

“It was very brief,” she said. The message, according to Santiago, told parents that students were in the process of being evacuated and said where they could meet them at 1 p.m.

Santiago said a second message, a pick-up reminder, was sent out in the early afternoon.

She said a third message sent around 3 p.m. notified parents that if they had not yet been able to pick up their students from Coachella Valley High, then the district would be returning them to their normal bus stops or to Desert Mirage and Toro Canyon, which had been given the all-clear by then by the sheriff's department.

Santiago was unable to say how the district helped parents to know whether their students were sent to their bus stops or their school sites, but she said all students were reunited with their parents or returned to their bus stops by around 4 p.m.

Santiago said staff had a debriefing Wednesday evening. She said additional counseling resources were made available to students and staff at the three schools on Thursday.

Santiago stressed that although there was never an active shooter on Wednesday, most district personnel attended an active shooter training over the summer. She added that the district’s goal is to have all staff, students, parents and community members complete such a training.

She did not say by when, or explain how the district would administer trainings to community members.

Jonathan Horwitz covers education for The Desert Sun. Reach him at jonathan.horwitz@desertsun.com or @Writes_Jonathan.

This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: After Thermal school evacuation, CVUSD and sheriff give new details