Melrose school locked down after threat

MELROSE – The school in Melrose was locked down for about 90 minutes Wednesday morning after a student threatened gun violence, officials said.

“(A) young man told his friend that he was going to shoot up the school,” District Attorney Brian Stover said.

Stover said the student who allegedly made the threat was located immediately and the threat was eliminated. “He did not have a weapon,” Stover said.

Curry County Sheriff Wesley Waller said the male student, an eighth-grader, told a classmate “that he had a loaded firearm in his backpack and he was going to shoot up the place.”

Students told a school principal they’d overheard the threat. The principal then notified a sheriff’s deputy who was making a routine security walk through the school as occurs most days, Waller said.

Waller said multiple deputies then responded to the school. They found the student still in Melrose but off campus where he’d gone with a parent.

“No weapon,” Waller said. “And the family accounted for the weapons that they own … they were all still securely locked up.”

The incident began just after 9 a.m. Wednesday, Waller said.

Officials last week were considering criminal charges, but it wasn’t clear Friday if any charges had been filed against the boy.

Melrose schools Superintendent Brian Stacy said the school was locked down as soon as the threat was known, meaning teachers and students sheltered in place and no one was allowed in or out of the school except for law enforcement.

Stacy said classes resumed as usual after the student was located and concerns were eliminated.

It was not immediately clear whether the incident was inspired by Tuesday’s elementary school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, in which 21 people were killed, mostly students.

Melrose schools are all housed in one complex. The district has about 300 students from pre-K through 12th grade.