Carlson: School lockdown went according to plan

Lockdown procedures initiated at Havre Public Schools Tuesday, were carried out with little trouble, Havre Public Schools Superintendent Andy Carlson said.

The procedures, aimed at keeping students safe, we're undertaken after school administrators learned Gabriel Arkinson, a prisoner being escorted from Rocky Boy's Indian Reservation to the Fort Belknap Indian Reservation, had escaped into the city's downtown area. He was apprehended two hours later.

"I think we did a nice job executing from our end what needed to be done," said Carlson.

The school was able to get staff, students and faculty inside and had people monitoring the building, including law enforcement, while classes went on as usual.

Lincoln-McKinley Primary School was the first of Havre's five public schools to be notified of the

situation. School administrators were informed by police, and decided to go into lockdown, preventing anyone from entering or exiting the building.

Lincoln-McKinley was notified first, Carlson said, because it is the school closest to the 1st Street and 6th Avenue location where Arkinson, who faces charges including attempted homicide, had escaped.

The city's other schools soon followed suit.

Two hours later, Carlson said the lockdown was ended when he got word from Havre police dispatchers that Arkinson had been apprehended.

Whenever there is a lockdown, Carlson said, the individual schools are informed of the situation that prompts the lockdown before he is.

"Their priority is to secure the building and assess the situation, not call me," said Carlson.

Measures taken during a lockdown vary depending on the situation. Emergencies where such action is taken can range from a prisoner on the run, someone with a weapon on the premises and bomb threats, to heavy flooding and power outages. Each scenario, requiring a different response.

Carlson said each school building is equipped with security cameras that enable staff to monitor locations throughout the school, as well as FOPS security systems.

The element of their emergency plan that Carlson said he was focused on the most was what to do with students if the lockdown continued beyond the normal school hours.

"I don't want to send a bus or a bus driver with a bus full of kids into a neighborhood where an individual is running loose," said Carlson.

Though he wouldn't disclose its details publicly, Carlson said the district had "a good plan" for ensuring students got home safely.

One part of the plan that would not be done as quickly as it could be, said Carlson, is getting out details about why a lockdown is happening.

Many people received texts as soon as the lockdown went into place, alerting them of the situation, but offering no explanation behind the decision.

There will likely always be a gap between when he hears details about a situation, and when the public hears about them, Carlson said.

Otherwise, he said, more instant communication would come at the expense of the effectiveness of coordinating the lockdown, or result in the spread of misinformation.

To ensure information being disseminated by the school district is accurate, Carlson said, he and the district will put out information from reliable sources with a history of accuracy.