Kat Simonelli
Managing Editor
A bomb threat in Walnut led to the lockdown of Walnut High School and the evacuation of Mount San Antonio College Thursday morning.
Lt. John Saleeby of the Walnut Sheriff’s Station said a bomb threat was phoned in to Walnut High School around 10:30 a.m.
A photo of a note written in red pen stating “there will be a bomb blown up today both here and Mt. SAC at 2:45 p.m. God be with you all,” was also reportedly found at the high school campus.
The Walnut Sheriff’s department responded immediately by locking down the school and sweeping the area with bomb sniffing dogs.
Students were in the middle of a “tutorial” period during which they could have gone to any location on campus to get extra help in their schoolwork when the lockdown was called for.
“Fortunately we just had a lockdown drill recently and the kids understood what to do in the event of a lockdown,” Walnut High School band and orchestra director Buddy Clements said.
Mt. SAC reportedly decided independently to close its campus and evacuate students.
The Walnut Sheriff’s department works closely with Mt. SAC to ensure students safety in the event of an emergency like this, Saleeby said.
“There’s always ongoing education and training with the deputies and drills that we do,” Saleeby said. “We do drills in conjunction with Mt. SAC, we have school safety plans in place and the deputies are always going to training to keep their skills sharp.”
Walnut sheriff’s deputies also carry out two drills a year on active shooters, Saleeby said.
If there were a similar scenario on the University La Verne campus, the La Verne Police Department would take the same precautionary measures La Verne Police Department Sgt. Monica Schusse said Thursday.
“We would keep the students safe, that would be our first priority, we would tell you to shelter in place and then we would notify the bomb agencies and they would bring in their apparatus to go look for the bomb,” Schusse said.
Kat Simonelli can be reached at kathryn.simonelli@laverne.edu.
