Nimitz Middle School Shooting – Nimitz Middle School entered “lockdown” Friday afternoon after a report of someone with a gun at the school, according to district officials.
Multiple law enforcement agencies responded to the campus and district leaders said they do not yet know if the report is true.
Councilman Mark Matta said he received a message from Odessa Police Chief Mike Gerke that said, “We have a 10-32 call at Nimitz, nobody can confirm they saw one, but students ran out yelling someone had a gun, mostly crowd control for now.”
Witnesses at the scene said parents have arrived on campus and have parked in the street, hoping to get their children from school; however, students will not be released while the campus is in lockdown. It will remain on lockdown as an investigation is conducted and ECISD said it will update the community as more information becomes available.
This comes after the Ector County Independent School District spent the week responding to and investigating a myriad of vague and non-credible social media posts promoting school violence and is now asking parents to help mitigate the spread of these posts.
In a letter from the district, ECISD said it is again getting reports of threats over social media and warned that those posts are spreading between students from school to school.
While police have repeatedly deemed these not credible, because of the high volume of them; ECISD police are in the process of running 2 weapons K9 officers through schools across the district. This response is out of the ordinary, however, district leaders said they feel this is necessary to ease collective anxiety.
The district also offered this advice to parents:
Parents, if you become aware of a threat, please notify police or your child’s school but we are asking that you not continue to share/promote them on social media. Local law enforcement is actively investigating each report but do not want to spread rumors and false reports.
We very much appreciate your patience and understanding this week. There are those who believe it is funny to create this kind of fear and chaos but we will overcome it and criminal charges will be pressed if we are able to track the person or people doing it.
Please reach out to your child’s principal if you have questions about our schools’ safety procedures. You can also contact us at any time.