First a lockdown drill, then a real lockdown at GMUHS as Chester Police investigate threat

By Cynthia Prairie and Shawn Cunningham
©2024 Telegraph Publishing LLC

A report of a person with a gun threatening to hurt people at Green Mountain Union High School may have been a hoax perpetrated by a group that has conducted similar swatting calls around the country, but the Chester Police weren’t taking any chances.

“We were pretty sure it was a hoax, but you want to treat it as real,”  Police Chief Tom Williams told The Telegraph last night.

Just after 11:30 a.m. 0n Monday, Vermont 911 reportedly received a text message from a VA suicide hotline saying that an armed person was in a GMUHS bathroom. He supposedly said, “I have an AR15. I’m in the bathroom I’m going to hurt people. Goodbye.”

When the call came in, Williams said, he and interim Fire Chief Scott Richardson were in a meeting and drove directly along with EMS chief Mike Randzio, who is also a police officer. Two other on-duty officers  were joined by a Springfield officer and began to work through the building.

Williams told The Telegraph that Chester Police, fire and ambulance rushed to the school and began checking bathrooms first, then classrooms, closets, the kitchen, the auditorium and school store for any sign of a possible intruder in the entire three-story building, calming students who remained in lockdown as they went along. “Everyone was doing what they were supposed to,” Williams said of the students, noting that some, of course, were more shaken than others.

Then, after a final check of parked vehicles, the outside of the school building and ground, police concluded that the situation was under control around 1 p.m.

Earlier in the day, the student body had gone through a lockdown drill, Williams said, so when police arrived, some students wondered if this was a continuation of the drill.

Williams told The Telegraph that the Vermont State Police Intelligence Center in Williston has said that several hoaxes with similar claims and scenarios had been reported around the country recently. Police put out an alert on the town’s emergency notification system Catalis and via Facebook asking parents and guardians not to come to the school or clog the phone lines. And school administrators did the same.

Williams told The Telegraph that checking the building could have been done much quicker if more officers from other departments had responded, recalling that in the past it has been normal practice. During the February 2019 threat and lockdown at the school, Vermont State Police, Springfield Police and others as wells as several fire departments responded.

“I don’t know why we didn’t have officers tripping over each other trying to respond,” said Williams. “It may be (that police departments are) getting to the place you have to call to request aid.” But he added, “You don’t want to drain the area of resources … We’re already bare bones here in Vermont.”

Williams said he would be looking into what might have happened in terms of  a communications breakdown or other factors. The Telegraph contacted the VSP to ask if the lack of response was a communications problem or if the day was extraordinarily busy. We were told to contact the Westminster Barracks in the morning.

On the other hand, Williams praised the GM students and staff. “I was very impressed with the kids and the staff,” said Williams on Monday evening, “Everyone was doing what they were supposed to do. We tried not to alarm them as much as possible.”

Today’s incident is being investigated by the Chester Police Department, and information about it is being forwarded to the FBI for further investigation. The school does have counseling plans in place for any student or faculty needing services throughout the school day tomorrow.