Arcadia school faces 3rd swatting incident, district holds safety meeting

ARCADIA, Fla. (WINK)—The DeSoto County School District is holding an emergency school safety meeting Friday morning after one of their schools received their third hoax call this week.

Thursday morning, Arcadia Police Department and DeSoto County Sheriff's Office responded to West Elementary in Arcadia after a fake call said there was an active shooter on campus. Law enforcement cleared the scene and resumed the school day as normal.

WINK News received a statement from Superintendent Dr. Bennett regarding communication protocol with families. "Our first priority during any active situation is safety. We share information with families as soon as it is verified and does not interfere with law enforcement response. That communication is sent through calls, texts, email, and app notifications. The communications for each day were sent as follows: emails - 546, text messages - 278, app users - 358. Additionally, 717 robocalls were made today," says the letter.  

Parents and students are freaked out about the frequency of these hoax calls and hope Thursday is final time students and staff have to experience this.

"Stop scaring our children, and you better hope the cops find you before a redneck in our town does," said Lindsay Heine, a mother at West Elementary. "There's quite a few people who are ready to find him," added Alyssa Laws, a mother at Nocatee Elementary.

Heine said after Monday's active shooter hoax call and Wednesday's bomb threat, she kept her third grader home, and is glad she did, especially after hearing about Thursday morning's other active shooter threat.

"Wednesday, when I got him, the first thing he said to me is, Mom, it hurts right here, and it's not like heartburn," Heine said. "I said, Honey, that's anxiety. I said, this is not something you should be going through no child should go through this. And he did tell me, says it today's was scarier because it's not something we always practice."

Alyssa Laws, Heine's friend and another mom at a DeSoto County school, says she's nauseous at the thought of how often these calls are happening.

"I have to take a visual picture of my daughter when I drop her off so I know what she's wearing and to like this past week, it really has my anxiety and a knot in my stomach, and I'm really debating if I should put her in homeschooling, because the world we live in is scary, and I can't take the chance of something happening," Laws said.

Heine showed WINK News the consistent push notifications she's gotten from the school through the Parent Square app. Although this week has taken an emotional toll on her and her son, she tells WINK News she feels better knowing staff and law enforcement are working tirelessly to keep everyone safe.

"I know there's a lot of parents are like, Well, why don't we get a call right away?" Heine said. "When you get that call right away, what is your first instinct? Let me get to my baby, as every parent should be. But when you do that, you block the roads for our first responders that we want in those schools we want there. You have to let them do their job. Let our school district do their job so that our babies can remain safe."

The emergency school safety meeting is scheduled for Friday morning on LaSolona Avenue. Parents with questions or concerns are encouraged to attend.