Littleton High School parents reflect on lockdown

Communication, strategy discussed

BY NINA JOSS NJOSS@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM

When Littleton High School ninth grader Osso Siddall heard lockdown alarms begin during his lunch period, he did the safest thing he could think of — he ran.

“The lockdown alert sounded, and then everybody was just screaming and confused,” he said. “And then I heard someone, I think it was like a staff member, said something about somebody was in the building… So I got out of there as fast as I could.”

Three blocks and a couple hundred rapid heartbeats later, he arrived at his home. His mother, Mary Siddall, knew something was wrong right away when her son opened the door, out of breath.

“I’m like, ‘What’s going on?’” she said. “And he’s like, ‘Well there was a lockdown.’ And I was like, ‘Why are you here?’ And he said, ‘Well, because I left. Why would I be in the building if there is a shooter?’”

Littleton High School was one of more than a dozen Colorado schools that were targeted by hoax threat calls, known as “swatting” calls, on Feb. 22. The incident threw parents, students, school staff, law enforcement officials and district officials into immedi- ate response mode as they tried to figure out what was happening and how to communicate during the incident.

Communication

Melissa Yongue found out about the lockdown when her ninthgrade daughter texted her from inside the school. Yongue was aware of the swatting calls happening at other schools. Her daughter said she heard no gunfire in the building.

“I would say within probably 10, 20 minutes, I think… my husband and her and I all felt pretty confident that it was just part of the hoax calls coming in because she wasn’t hearing anything,” Yongue said. “So it was kind of a shortlived panic, but it was definitely a panic. I mean, it’s not something that any parent wants to get from a text message from their child in 2023.”

While the lockdown was happening, Yongue said she continuously refreshed the Littleton Police Department Twitter page to see updates on the situation. On the police department’s Tweets, comments from some parents expressed frustration that Littleton Public Schools was not communicating more during the lockdown.

One comment at 2:31 p.m. thanked the department for its updates, saying that the district had “communicated nothing” at that point. Another comment posted the next morning said, “And there was also no communication with the parents until 2 hours and it was over! Not cool.”

The lockdown started at 1:47 p.m., according to the district. The district sent a text message and email to parents about the lockdown at approximately 3:27 p.m., just a few minutes before the school’s regular dismissal time and about 17 minutes before the lockdown lifted. Later in the evening, the district sent messages from Littleton High School Principal Cathy Benton and Superintendent Brian Ewert.

Yongue recognized there could be many reasons the information didn’t come faster from the district, but said it was still frustrating that the information came out as late as it did.

“I understand it’s a sticky situation, but I think lack of information is what causes people to speculate,” she said. “And it takes one student or one person to misinterpret something or mishear something or mistake something and that information spreads like wildfire… I would like to have more information coming from them but like I said, we had the information coming from (the police department) and that is what I think kept a lot of parents as calm as you can be in a situation like that.”

Police spokesperson Sheera Poelman said her goal with police communications is to get information out quickly when it relates to public safety. The district, she said, is a different entity with different communication processes.

“Both the school system and the police department realized that we need to get our communication teams together,” she said. “So that way, if something like this happens in the future, we’re ready.”

Littleton Public Schools spokesperson Diane Leiker said the district was working to get information out as fast as they could while also juggling many other concerns during the incident, especially because it happened near dismissal time. They were coordinating with law enforcement, figuring out delayed dismissals, adjusting bus plans and also managing situations at the district’s three other schools that were on secure perimeter at the same time as the lockdown, she said.

“It’s important to note that