5 Disturbing TRUE School Lockdown Stories

Immediately go to the nearest room and lock and barricade the door. Stay low and stay quiet. [Music] I went to a somewhat typical high school, not in a traditional American suburb, but a more rural set high school.

Some kids go to schools with graduating classes of like 500 to hell, even a thousand kids. My high school had, I think, a little less than 200 kids in my graduating class. It was the kind of high school where even if you weren't friends with someone, you still knew them by face and name.

Walking down the hallways, you'd know basically 99% of your peers, at least in your own graduating class. Coming from a quiet town, there weren't a lot of crazy news stories really. It was pretty uneventful there.

What we did for fun after school was actually go out and play sports and ride our bikes around and stuff like that. This was like 17 years ago though, so I guess things may be a lot different these days for kids. Another thing I always felt that was unique about our school was that there didn't really seem to be any bullying for the most part.

Like at least not the typical cliche movie style bullying where kids are getting pushed into lockers or having their lunch money stolen. When I think back now, I can't really name a single kid from my graduating class who could be labeled as a bully. Sure, there were kids who just tease others, but nothing too serious.

Of course, there were quiet kids in our grade, like every school has, but there was one kid in my grade who literally never spoke at all. I'm going to just name him Luke for this story. He wasn't even a weird looking kid or anything.

He seemed pretty nice to people who went out of their way to interact with him. I shared one class with him, though. It was an elective that had kids from all four grades in it.

Luke and I were juniors when this happened. This elective was a computer class, and back when this happened, the computer rooms in our high school were still rocking those big, bulky box computers. I remember the layout of this classroom.

There was the aisle in the middle separating two columns of tables, and the two columns had four rows each. Each row had four seats, and each student had their own computer. This class wasn't full, so there were probably like 26 filled seats out of 32.

Luke always sat in the second row in the furthest seat to the left with no one next to him, as everyone else sat with people they knew from their respective grades. Unfortunately, not long into the semester, the seniors in the class started collectively picking on Luke. By this I mean some of the seniors would make jokes about how quiet Luke was that it was scary when the teacher would ask certain things.

For whatever reason, our teacher never stood up for Luke and told them to cut it out. The teacher was a bit of a pushover from what I remember. Maybe that was why.

As the semester went on, it got a little worse. I remember at one point seeing a small piece of paper fly from the back row from the seniors right to the back of Luke's head. I remember he turned around and had this very telling look.

The seniors continued to make fun, one of them saying, "Wasn't me. " And blaming one of the other seniors. The look on Luke's face just looked like a mix of sadness, anger, and just defeatedness.

I genuinely felt bad, but I didn't get involved. Eventually, one day, I saw Luke sitting on a curb not far from the high school after school ended one day. I passed by him as I was walking to my car.

I have an early birthday, so I was driving around halfway through junior year. Given we were in a quiet area, no one was exactly walking distance from school. So, I did the right thing and said, "What's up?

" and asked if he needed a ride home. His face literally lit up a bit as he said yes. We walked to my car and from there on he guided me to his house.

It was about a 10-minute drive to his house. We talked a lot during that car ride. I told him he should just ignore the seniors in our computer class.

I said they're a bunch of dead beats anyway. He said they're not the only ones that he's sick of. He implied that he deals with people picking on him in multiple classes, which honestly made me feel pretty terrible for him.

In those 10 minutes, I felt like I learned a lot about Luke and got to know him as a person just a bit. And he seemed like a decent kid. As I dropped him off, I made a comment to him about how close we lived.

And then we said goodbye. Every day in class after that, we'd say hey to each other, but admittedly I unfortunately never got involved whenever he got picked on. Well, one day Luke didn't show up to class.

Computer class was fourth period. It wasn't until 7th period English that an announcement came over the loudspeaker saying, "Lockdown. This is not a drill.

" I remember everyone looking around nervously, and I remember our teacher looking the most nervous. She ran to turn off the lights and told everyone to hurry to one corner of the room. Seeing how nervous our teacher was only made all the students even more nervous.

We sat with the lights off for a long time. It had to be 20 to 30 minutes until there was another message on the loudspeaker. It was the principal explaining that there was someone in a mask carrying a black duffel bag trying to get into the school.

Our school had really good security, and when someone spotted that person approaching the school with what could only be assumed to be guns or any kind of weapons in that duffel bag, the doors were all locked. The school day was cut short after that once a few police cars were on the scene. I remember it being a Friday, so I took a few of my friends home to my house so we could hang out.

I'd be lying if I said I remember the small details thereafter of that day. But I think it was that same night that I woke up in the middle of the night to light tapping at my window. And I could see someone on the other side of the glass.

I started freaking out and before running to get my dad, I took a closer look and then said, "Who is it? " I heard Luke's voice as he said his name. I felt like my heart dropped a second time.

I went over to the window and lifted it just a crack. I said, "What are you doing? How did you find me?

" And he said, "Through the window, I tried to do something bad. " And it instantly clicked. I mean it.

It instantly clicked in my head that it was him. Before he could even tell me, I said, "Was it you who caused the lockdown? " And he said, "Yes.

" I was scared to ask him what he was planning on doing. Instead, I asked him how he found me. He admitted to remembering the deli that I said I lived by, and he eventually found my car after biking around the area.

That explanation didn't make it any less disturbing. Luke asked me if he could come in and talk about what he planned on doing, and I said, "No, I cannot let him in, nor can I hear what he planned on doing. " I actually recommended he go to the school and confess to whatever he was going to do.

And when he refused to walk away from my window, I said, "Dad," really loudly, which worked in scaring him off. I went to my parents' room and woke them up to tell them. My mom was the one who insisted on calling the police.

She was distraught. When a police officer eventually came, I had no choice but to tell the truth. I gave Luke's identity and I explained that he had just come to my window admitting to potentially almost doing something horrible at the school.

Obviously, the police were already aware of the lockdown, so I believe police were sent to his house that night. But after speaking with Luke's parents, they realized Luke wasn't there. I believe it was the next day that Luke was either found or he just returned home and police were still waiting there and he confessed to what he told me.

As far as our graduating class knew, Luke was charged with something like making a terroristic threat. I know he did time and I know he's been out a long time. To be honest, I don't really know if he's still around.

Part of me always wanted to feel bad for Luke, witnessing how loneliness and getting picked on can probably eat away at someone. He followed me and came to me simply because I showed him an act of kindness. Something I unfortunately believe nobody else showed him.

Still, the fact that he admitted to bringing a gun to school with a mask on, even if he didn't admit to intending on carrying out the implied threat, I can't fully believe he simply came to the school with a gun just to scare people. I think he for a split second had a horrible plan and got cold feet and regretted it. I just hope Luke eventually got the help he needed.

[Music] This happened in 2016 back when I was in fifth grade. If you remember that year, you probably remember all the killer clown sightings that were happening around the country. At the time, it was all over the news and social media.

Most adults thought it was just some dumb trend or prank, but for young kids, it was actually pretty scary. It was a normal day at school. I went to an elementary school in a quiet suburban area where I still live.

Nothing weird ever really happens here. It was around 1:00 p. m.

I'm guessing because it was closer to the end of the school day. We were in class working on some random assignment and the classroom was quiet except for a few people whispering. Then one of the students in my class suddenly said out loud, "There's a clown outside.

" I still remember her high-pitched voice as she said it. Some of us stood up and looked toward the window. And yeah, there really was a clown outside.

He was standing just a few feet away from the window, facing our classroom directly. He was wearing a baggy, dirty red and yellow clown suit and had white face paint with black around the eyes. He was smiling and staring in at us with this big fake grin.

After a few seconds, he started waving slowly. Some of the kids thought it was funny and laughed. Others were clearly freaked out.

Our teacher, Mr. Riker, walked over to the window, looked at the guy for a second, and then said through the glass loud and annoyed, "Excuse me, classes are in session. You need to get out of here.

" The clown didn't react at all. He just kept standing there smiling and waving. Mr.

Riker told us all to sit back down and said she was calling the front office. She picked up the corded classroom phone and then walked into the hallway with it and spoke quietly. The phones in the classrooms were always next to the door, so that's how she was able to walk outside the room with it.

She came back in moments later and then hung up. She walked over to the window and shut all the blinds after she saw that the man in the clown costume was still there doing the same creepy waving motion, smiling, and general clownish mannerisms. Not even 2 minutes later, the principal's voice came over the loudspeaker.

Staff, please get your classrooms into lockdown formation. There was a sense of urgency in the voice that looking back was probably to alert the teachers that it wasn't a drill without causing all the kids to go into a panic. That's when it got serious.

Mr. Riker rushed to turn off the lights and told us all to get under our desks. She pulled the door shut and locked it.

Everyone was quiet. Some kids were giggling, but others looked scared. I was definitely scared.

We stayed like that for what felt like forever, but it was actually about 30 minutes. Nobody knew what was happening, but eventually the principal came back on the loudspeaker and said the lockdown was over and that the situation had been handled. Apparently, school security had confirmed that the clown was gone.

They didn't tell us anything else. Classes went on like normal for the rest of the day. It felt weird.

Everyone was talking about it during dismissal, but the teachers didn't say much. Then after school, I was walking home with my friend Chris. We lived in the same neighborhood just a few blocks away.

While we were walking, a couple of fifth grade girls behind us suddenly ran past us looking panicked. One of them said, "There's someone in the woods. " We stopped and turned around.

Behind the school, there's a small patch of trees. It's not deep woods or anything, just enough to separate the school from the street behind it. And standing just barely out of view near the edge of the woods was the clown again.

Same dirty outfit, same painted face. He was half hidden by the trees, but he was clearly waving. And he wasn't just waving at random.

He was doing it slowly directly at the girls who had just passed us like he was trying to call them over. Chris and I didn't say anything. We just ran.

I don't know what happened after that, but I told my parents as soon as I got home. They called the school and later I heard from another kid that the police were called again and patrolled the area, but they never found anyone. To this day, nobody knows who that guy was.

And I don't know if he was just trying to scare some kids or if he were planning something worse. But what freaks me out the most is that he came back after the lockdown and he waited hidden in the trees watching kids go home. [Music] So, this happened not long ago.

I live on the outskirts of Philadelphia where it's me, my son, and my step-daughter. I say stepdaughter as I've taken my best friend's daughter in legally. Around 2016, my best friend Joanne was murdered by her husband.

He ended up making national headlines and was convicted of five more murder cases. He's facing three consecutive life sentences with no parole. Now I'm a middle school teacher at my son's school.

He's the year below what I teach. My stepdaughter is the grade above what I teach, so their classrooms are not far off from mine. This incident took place on March 30th, 2020, when the lockdowns were slowly taking place.

Where I taught, the school was rather distant from anywhere. The next school was about 10 mi. The gas station was about 2 mi and the nearest park was about 600 m from where we were.

So, we were one of the last schools to go into lockdown. Around midday of March, it was a normal heated Monday. I was teaching math at that time for the sixth graders.

All of a sudden, I get a notification on my phone that someone was here to pick up my stepdaughter. The system that works is the main emergency number gets a notification if someone is picking up your child. The thing is, my stepdaughter was three classes down from me.

She had no appointments, no close family that lived in a good radius from us. I replied that I'm here at school and no one in a 10 mile radius is picking her up. This was sending alarm bells off left and right.

They said that the person picking her up was her biological dad. The school doesn't have that type of information on file. A few minutes go by on the phone and it's dead silent.

The lady tells me she's going to call the principal and see what he wants to do from there. A gut feeling didn't sit right with me. I called my stepdaughter's classroom and asked for her to be sent to my room.

Just as I hung up, I was back to teaching when my stepdaughter came into the classroom. Not even 10 minutes later, the lockdown siren went off. I had kids push desks to the door and barricade the windows and everyone sat in the corner.

I had a pretty good feeling on who this lockdown was about. We were in a lockdown for about 46 minutes at this point. My main concern was how did he end up getting out.

About 2 hours later, the lockdown was lifted and I was escorted out by the police. I was further questioned on how I knew this man due to the CPS records. I said I took my best friend's daughter in and explained the whole story.

The police informed me that how he had gotten out was a prison bus transporting inmates to another cell, but a car came swerving in and crashed into the prison bus, leaving 10 prisoners dead on the scene. Two prison guards knocked out and 20 escaped. There were police already at our house waiting for the dad to show up, but he never did.

When they heard the lockdown at the school, they knew it was one of the prisoners. If they had never gotten there on time, I honestly have no idea what would have [Music] happened. This happened during my freshman year of high school.

I'm 21 now and I still think about it all the time. I went to a public school in a pretty average suburban town. We did lockdown drills maybe once every couple months.

So, when this one started, that's exactly what I thought it was, just a drill. It was a Wednesday, fourth period. I remember because it was Earth Science and we had just finished a pop quiz.

I was putting my stuff into my backpack when the loudspeaker came on and said, "This is a lockdown. Lock all doors, lights off, stay quiet. " At first, nobody panicked.

Our teacher, Mr. Chen, sighed, got up, and locked the door like usual. She turned off the lights and told us all to get into the corner of the room away from the door.

Everyone was laughing a little and whispering like it was no big deal. But then we heard a second announcement. Same voice, but it sounded different, more rushed.

This is not a drill. I repeat, this is not a drill. That's when the room went silent.

My teacher didn't say a word. She just motioned for everyone to stay down and keep quiet. I could tell even she was nervous now.

She kept checking her phone and we could hear faint distant police sirens outside. A few minutes passed. Then we heard something from the hallway.

Footsteps, slow ones, and not in a hurry like a cop or a teacher. Just one person walking. They stopped right in front of our classroom.

We were all staring at the door. Nobody breathed. Then came a knock.

Not loud, just a soft, slow knock three times. Nobody moved. Then the doororknob turned.

They tried to open it, but it was locked obviously. But they kept trying. Not aggressively, just turning the handle back and forth like they were checking.

And then a male's voice on the other side said, "This is just a drill. You can open the door now. " We all collectively looked at Mr.

Chen. And then she looked back at all of us, put her finger up to her lips, and shook her head no. The person on the other side of the door kept knocking and trying the doororknob and eventually the knocks got more aggressive as the voice of the man on the other side kept saying hello.

Our classroom was on the first floor in the science wing. I can't tell you how much I was shaking in my shoes. I know even if all the other kids didn't want to admit it, they were as well.

Eventually, the knock stopped and the man must have walked away. We heard nothing after that for a solid 5 minutes. Total silence apart from the police sirens outside getting louder.

It felt like forever. Then someone down the hall screamed. It was a girl.

Just one scream and then nothing. A couple of people in my class started crying quietly. Honestly, it was the girls.

Someone whispered that they saw a shadow move past the little glass window on the classroom door on several occasions. Each time anyone spoke, even quietly, Mr. Chen gave a stern but quiet sh.

Another 5 or 10 minutes passed. Then finally, we heard the sound of police officers shouting from down the hallway, telling everyone to stay in place. They were going room to room.

And when they finally knocked on our door and unlocked it with a key, Mr. Chen didn't even move until they showed their badges. We were all escorted out in a line past other classes doing the same thing.

There were cop cars everywhere outside, even a SWAT van. I didn't see anything too crazy, but I did see one officer leading a guy in cuffs out of the building. He looked about 30, not a student, pale, long hair, wearing dark clothes.

Later that day, we found out that some criminal had slipped into the school through one of the side doors during a delivery. That side door was right by the end of the science wing. Apparently, he was mentally unstable and had something in his backpack, but I don't know if it was a weapon or not.

They didn't tell us much. They just said nobody was hurt and everything was under control. But I swear I'll never forget that knock at the door.

The way he turned the handle, the scream down the hall. It didn't feel like everything was under control at [Music] all. I had just started school and I already had a lockdown to tell.

I'm only 15 years old and just started as a sophomore at Northside High School in Jacksonville, North Carolina. That morning, I came to school early around 6:55 a. m.

I was one of the first people in my first period class, which was chorus. Our classroom is at the very end of the fine arts hallway, right next to the auditorium. I was sitting at my seat with my phone out listening to music and just waiting for the bell to ring and start the day.

After a few minutes, I heard my teacher say something, so I paused my music and took out my headphones. When I looked up, I saw my classmates heading into the closet at the back of the choir room. I was confused.

We had just practiced a lockown drill the day before, so I wasn't sure if this was another drill or something else. Still, I listened to what the teacher was saying and followed everyone else into the closet. The teacher shut the door behind us and turned off the lights.

We were now sitting in complete darkness with only a small amount of light coming in from under the door. At this point, I still didn't know what was happening. But then I heard police sirens outside.

That's when I started to realize this wasn't a drill. It was real. I started to feel nervous, but I kept calm.

I figured if I stayed as composed as I could, maybe I wouldn't panic as much. I sat in that closet quietly, trying to listen for any sounds coming from outside. But I didn't hear anything else.

We stayed in that closet with the lights off until the lockdown ended around 8:45 a. m. That's nearly 2 hours.

Once we were let out, I felt calm again because everyone around me had stayed calm, too. I went back to my seat in the front of the room and put my music back on, just trying to get back to normal. Later on, I decided to ask my teacher what had happened.

I said, "Were there any fights today? " The teacher looked at me seriously and said, "It's much worse. " That's when I started to realize something serious had really gone down.

I looked out the window and saw cars lined up in the back of the school. At first, I thought it was just regular pickup traffic, but it felt different. In the classroom, some students were trying to get information.

Eventually, my friend Jacob told me that someone had been stabbed in the middle of the school in the retunda. I didn't know much more than that at the time, but shortly after, my mom texted me asking if I was okay. I told her I was safe and still in my choir class.

Some girls in the class had started crying after the lockdown, and that made everything feel even more real. My mom called me next. She told me she had parked her car at the baseball field along with a bunch of other worried parents trying to find their kids.

Eventually, my name was called and I was allowed to leave the school. When I got to the field, I found my mom. She was clearly shaken up, and honestly, so was I.

She drove me to the daycare where she worked, and once we got there, both of us went into a quiet room where we cried together. Her co-workers came in to try and comfort us, and I had to go outside to calm down even more. I put my headphones back in and listened to 3 days grace just to get my head right again.

Later on, we found out exactly what happened. Two students had been taken to the hospital. One of them died.

A teacher had also been slashed by the attacker. In total, three people had been hurt that day. I started searching for more information and found the press conference about the incident already posted online.

After watching it, my mom took me to Arby's to get something to eat. I hadn't eaten all day. We got our food.

Then, we went to pick up my younger brother from his middle school. He told us he had noticed a lot of cops at the school, but didn't know what had happened. When we got home, I kept searching online for updates.

That's when I saw that a 16-year-old, had already been charged with voluntary manslaughter, assault with a deadly weapon, and a list of other serious charges. Two more students, 115 and 116, were also charged with assault, and disorderly conduct. What made it even more disturbing was that someone had recorded the stabbing and posted the video on Snapchat.

I didn't watch the video myself, but my mom told me about it. She said in the video the person recording was running, so the phone was pointed at the grounds, but you could clearly hear the screams of kids as the stabbing happened. My mom thinks the whole thing might have been gang related.

And after I heard that, I was scared. Scared that someone might come back to retaliate. Another attack, more violence.

It's hard to believe that someone actually died. I didn't even know the kid, but I've been thinking about him ever since. I hope he rests in peace.