HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY, Fla. — Plant City High School parents are on edge after three threatening incidents within three school days. On Friday last week, four students were arrested in connection with firearms at school.
On Monday, the school was evacuated over what deputies say was a suspicious call. Then on Tuesday, parents received a message that there was a loaded gun found in a student's backpack. The student, an 18-year-old, was arrested.
This is all leaving parents and students on edge. They tell TampaBay 28 reporter Keely McCormick that they are worried about campus safety and frustrated by the frequency of these incidents.
Emily Lewis is a parent who said, “For parents, we are scared for our children in the schoolhouse. The children are scared in school!”
Lewis said she felt uneasy dropping her daughter off for school on Wednesday morning. Many parents decided to keep their kids at home.
Julia Hana said, “He is not at school today and he is not going back for the rest of the year,” Hana said.
Hana's son is a senior with just two weeks left of the school year. She said he is done after everything that happened.
“I do not trust that school anymore. I do not. That’s too many incidents in too short of time,” Hana said.
Parents said fear and anger are colliding as they worry about what could happen next.
“Something has to give because we are going to be looking at another Parkland sooner rather than later,” Lewis said.
Plant City High School is no longer allowing backpacks on campus. Students must have clear bags and lunchboxes. District leaders also tell me the school had a larger law enforcement presence on campus on Wednesday.
Every parent we spoke to is calling for metal detectors.
Lewis said, “None of them are safe unless they make it safe, which is putting metal detectors in there. If we can have them at the courthouse, we can have them at the hospitals. We should be able to have them in schools too.”
District leaders tell me they conduct random metal detector tests throughout the year. They utilized the detectors on Wednesday, but parents tell me they want the metal detectors to be permanent.
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