The Shooting Near Timberline High School
My friend and I had just finished eating at Zeppole, a bakery a few minutes' walk from Timberline High School. We walked toward the door to leave when an old...
My friend and I had just finished eating at Zeppole, a bakery a few minutes’ walk from Timberline High School. We walked toward the door to leave when an older man asked, “Do you go to Timberline High?”
I nodded. And he proceeded to tell us about how he heard gunfire while holding his phone out, a Facebook post about a shooting around Timberline illuminating the screen.
A glance at his phone showed the post was from 2015. Eight years ago, I thought. He must’ve heard something similar to gunshots.
As my friend and I drove back to Timberline, we saw police cars lining an intersection. An ambulance whirred by. But the school hadn’t been placed on lockdown, so it must’ve been a coincidence that an incident had just occurred across the street.
We walked back to school, went to our next class. Ten minutes later, the principal’s voice came on the intercom, reporting a shooting nearby, assuring us we were safe.
The news said this: a man threatened his family who lived near Timberline. Police had been tracking him since Star, Idaho, 45 minutes away from our school. When he reached the intersection next to Timberline, he got out of his car with “what appeared to be a firearm.” The police shot him, he ran, and later they caught him.
According to Boise Police Chief Ron Winegar, our school resource officer was in contact the entire time, and Timberline was almost placed into lockdown. But why weren’t we?
The police tracked the man all the way from Star. They were in contact with my school’s SRO. They had all the information they needed. If you know a dangerous suspect is heading toward two schools, Timberline High School and White Pine Elementary, why don’t you place the schools on lockdown?
We’re lucky this situation hadn’t escalated—that there wasn’t some high schooler walking in the direction of the shootout. But what if there was?
Schools need to be safe. I don’t care if I miss a biology test or stay an hour late after school because of a lockdown. Because if there wasn’t, and someone’s kid died today, tell me: What the fuck are you going to say to the parents? “I’m sorry” doesn’t cut it.