No gun found in MHS sweep

Despite already negating claims that a student was going to bring a gun to school, the Marianas High School administration still took every precaution last Friday to ensure its students’ safety by placing the school on lockdown so they could individually search every student’s belongings. No gun was found, however.

The MHS administration placed the entire campus on lockdown at around 10am Friday so that teachers, with guidance from the Department of Public Safety, could search every student’s belongings in case the rumors of one bringing a gun to school turned out to be true.

The MHS administration also worked with the Department of Public Safety to have officers on campus to further ensure the safety of its students.

According to MHS principal Jonathan Aguon, in the interest of safety, it was decided that a sweep of the entire campus be conducted to ensure that there was no weapon on campus.

“At 10:10am, we signaled for all classrooms to shelter in place. It was not a lockdown due to a threat. Instead, the shelter-in-place was to ensure that the sweep can be conducted properly without the interruption of the bell schedule. We informed our teachers before the sweep began. No weapon was found. No invasive body searches were conducted. DPS was present throughout the sweep for their guidance. The sweep ended with the all-clear given at 12:10pm,” Aguon stated.

After the thorough investigation and sweep, MHS determined that the claims were just baseless rumors.

“MHS took the claim very seriously and acted swiftly, conducting an investigation. It was concluded that there was no immediate threat, and it was a baseless rumor that was misconstrued as it was being spread. Nevertheless, we consulted with the Department of Public Safety and our PSS leadership to ensure that we make the safest decisions,” he said.

MHS thanks DPS for their partnership, the students for their compliance, and the school emergency team for thoroughly carrying out the sweep.

“We understand that this morning had a bit of anxiety in the air given a viral social media post about a weapon possibly being brought to our campus. We would like thank all students for your compliance with today’s sweep. As the largest school in PSS, it took some time, but we ensured that it was thorough for your safety. We would also like to thank DPS for their partnership and thank our school emergency team for their diligence in the sweep. As a school, we need to continuously work together to keep our school safe,” Aguon said.

The sweep was conducted after students took to social media last Thursday to warn others about another student possibly bringing a gun to school on Friday.

After seeing these posts on social media, the MHS administration quickly jumped into action and investigated every student who was circulating the information.