Madison High School is back to business as usual following the arrest of a student who entered campus with multiple guns this morning.
Parents lined the front of Madison High School shortly after the school went into lockdown after a 17-year-old sophomore was discovered with weapons in his bag. North East ISD Spokeswoman Aubrey Chancellor said the student's parents discovered the student and several of their guns was missing from home.
“They did report him as a runaway," Chancellor said. "Later that morning they came to school. They asked to search the student’s backpack, alerted administrators, and inside the backpack two guns and knife were found."
There were two handguns -- .22 caliber and .45 caliber -- and the student admitted to hiding an AK-47 in one of the school’s bathrooms, which was recovered. He claimed he wanted to make several demands over the school’s public address system.
“He did say if those demands were not met he would act with those weapons," Chancellor said.
The district is now conducting an investigation. Kim Hunt, the parent of a ninth grader, said she first received a text from her daughter.
“It said that they were going into lockdown and she was asking if I knew why. I told her that I hadn’t heard anything,” Hunt said. “No e-mail, no text, no phone call nothing from the school and I said, ‘Are you sure it’s not just a drill?’ and she said, ‘No, mom. We’re sitting in a closet locked in and we’re having to be quiet.’ ”
She said the district did issue a robocall saying a student had been taken into custody. Her daughter, Katie, said she was huddled into a supply closet for about 50 minutes.
“It was pretty scary, honestly," Katie said. "It was surreal, like you couldn’t believe it was happening.”
Chancellor said the district does not believe the incident was in anyway related to the threat against schools last week. The school was on lockdown for about an hour before the students were released back into their normal class schedule.
