Suspicious person leads to lockdown at Southshore

By Doug Spoon, Editor

Southshore Elementary School was placed on a brief lockdown this morning following the presence of a suspicious person outside the school’s main entrance, authorities said. Police summoned to the school did not find the person on site and after a search of the school and surrounding area, the lockdown was lifted.

That was just part of another busy day for police officers and school administrators who are on heightened alert these days because of increasing social media threats, Menifee Police Chief Chris Karrer said.

Schools across the country already were on high alert because of a Tik Tok challenge Karrer said had “morphed” into a “bring guns to school” message circulated on social media platforms. Concern increased Thursday when some messages targeted today as the day violence would take place at schools, although no specific school was mentioned.

Schools in the Romoland School District and Perris Union High School District had already recessed after Thursday for the three-week holiday break, but Menifee Union School District schools were in the midst of the final day of instruction today. That was the case at Southshore when a female in her early teens rang the doorbell outside the school’s front door just after 9 a.m., Karrer said.

The girl appeared to be under the influence of drugs and said she was “angry,” a school official told police officers. It appeared to the administrator that the girl might be in possession of a knife as well. The school was placed on lockdown as a precaution, although the girl left the premises.

Meanwhile, however, many parents responding to calls about the lockdown from their children showed up at the school, demanding that their children be released. Many students went home with their parents as police cleared the campus, and the lockdown was soon lifted, said Karrer.

During the commotion, a parent who couldn’t reach Southshore by phone then called Bell Mountain Middle School, inquiring about a lockdown. That prompted the presence of a police officer there, but there was no connection to the Southshore incident and no lockdown was necessary at that school, Karrer said.

All in all, it was a day of anxiety and frustration for parents, police and school administrators. Although there was no clear connection between the Tik Tok challenge and the girl’s presence outside the school, Karrer said the social media threats have everyone on edge any time a suspicious incident occurs.

“This month’s Tik Tok challenge is ‘Do something ballsy,’ and it morphs on social media into ‘Bring guns to school,’’’ Karrer said. “Then it spreads like wildfire. In October the challenge was ‘Smack a teacher,’ and you had school administrators threatening to file charges if a teacher was struck.”

“Apparently kids figured what better way than to do this the last day of school before holiday break, to get out of a day of school. The good thing is, there was no local threat here.

“In order to change the behavior of whoever is doing this, it has to start with the kids and their parents. We try to tell people that once you allow your child to have any one of these social media accounts, chances are pretty good that the child has another hidden account.”