The day after a report of an armed man on campus sent Bancroft Middle School into an afternoon lockdown, police say that the suspect in question was a former student visiting teachers who did not have a weapon.
According to Counselor Mike Temple, at around 11:30AM Monday, a Bancroft student reported that he was approached on campus by someone he believed by his older appearance to be a high school student who, after supposedly offering the Bancroft student some marijuana, lifted up his shirt and exposed “what the student said looked like a gun.”
Long Beach Police Department on Tuesday, however, said that after a thorough search of the school and neighboring Pan American Park failed to locate the suspect, it was determined that a gun was never actually seen on campus.
“After the searches were complete, detectives continued investigating the incident,” said LBPD spokesperson Nancy Pratt. “Detectives were able to identify the male subject in question as a 19-year-old former student.”
The subject was contacted and interviewed during which time it was determined that he was on school grounds visiting former teachers and did not have a weapon.
In a statement to parents outside of Bancroft after the incident Monday, Temple also said that the student who reported seeing the gun was “not a very reliable source in the first place,” but that all pecautions must be taken in situations such as this.
Both parents and school officials have praised police response to the incident, which Temple said came within three minutes of a call from Long Beach Unified School Safety officials. Teachers were also praised by parents for keeping children calm during the ordeal with some children unaware that the search was any more than a fire drill.
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