Clovis Police Officer Clay Cullison stands outside Marshall Junior High School on Thursday. Police were called to the school after a concerned citizen reported seeing a male juvenile enter with a suspiciously concealed item.
Posted on 04/29/2005 1:05:10 PM PDT by MississippiMasterpiece
A concerned citizen spotted a male juvenile carrying a suspiciously concealed item into Marshall Junior High School early Thursday morning.
Police were called. The school was locked down. Adjacent streets were closed and law officers were perched on roofs with weapons.
The drama ended about two hours later when the suspicious item was identified:
A 30-inch burrito, prepared as an extra-credit assignment and wrapped inside tinfoil and a white T-shirt.
“I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry,” school Principal Diana Russell said after the mystery was solved.
“Overall, I’d say we had a good learning day.”
The incident began about 8:30 a.m., Russell said.
The school was locked down — no one allowed to enter or leave and students locked inside their classrooms — until police searched the premises and determined there was no immediate danger.
Russell said the student’s burrito was discovered after she brought the school together in the auditorium to explain what she knew about the series of events.
“The kid was sitting there as I’m describing this (citizen report of a student with a suspicious package) and he’s thinking, ‘Oh, my gosh, they’re talking about my burrito.’”
After the meeting, which included students and parents, Russell said the student, Michael Morrissey, approached her.
“He said, ‘I think I’m the person they saw,’” Russell said. “He said, ‘It was my extra-credit project. I put a white T-shirt over it because I wanted it to stay warm.’”
Within minutes after the citizen report, representatives from New Mexico State Police, Clovis police and the Curry County Sheriff’s Department were on the scene.
“We’ve trained for incidents just like this — the training just kicked in,” said Sgt. Jim Schoeffel of the Clovis Police Department.
Schoeffel said the streets closest to the school, Main and Commerce Way, were blocked off as officers positioned themselves on the roof and around points of exit and entry at the school.
Parents, alerted to the incident by a local radio report, descended on the school, where they initially found little information.
More than 30 parents congregated in the Lowe’s Grocery Store parking lot adjacent from Marshall High. Visibly shaken, they gathered around in a semi-circle, straining their necks, awaiting news.
Heather Black, who has a son at the school, echoed the sentiments of the crowd.
“There needs to be security before the kids walk through the door,” she said.
Russell said about 75 students left the school with their parents soon after the lockdown was called off. At the time, the suspicious item had not been located.
Russell praised police for their efforts and school officials for following procedures properly.
She said she learned several things from the incident, primarily related to informing parents. She said the school received multiple telephone calls from parents who talked with school secretaries who had little information.
“All they (secretaries) were told is that it was a code blue (lockdown) and they didn’t know if it was a drill or not,” Russell said.
“If I had it to do over again, we would have alerted the secretaries that we had an actual threat ... so we would not come across like we were trying to hide something.”
Russell said “98 percent” of the parents were understanding and supportive of school officials, but “we had a handful that were very verbal and one had to be escorted away by police.”
“But the bottom line,” Russell said, “at the end of the day, I feel pretty good about our response. This worked.”
Clovis Police Officer Clay Cullison stands outside Marshall Junior High School on Thursday. Police were called to the school after a concerned citizen reported seeing a male juvenile enter with a suspiciously concealed item.
What kind of school is this?
Make a run for the border....
In my house burrito's are Weapons of Mass Destruction!
PU
"Drop the chalupa!"
This is one of the dumbest things I have read in quite sometime. And that is saying quite a lot.
A school of idiots, from a community of the same.
Heather Black, who has a son at the school, echoed the sentiments of the crowd. “There needs to be security before the kids walk through the door,” she said.
"Something happened, so somebody has to do something sometime soon!"
Next time make a pizza!!
The student is fortunate he wasn't tasered after he identified himself in order to secure the burrito more quickly.
*snicker*
We would carry them to and from the rifle range that was about a mile from the school. No one was ever hurt and no one ever asked questions about it.
Bumping for a later read. This thread just has too much potential.
Check out my package, hun - they're all talking 'bout MY burrito.
I'm suspicious of "concerned citizens." I don't think they have anything better to do than watch what other people are doing and jump to conclusions based on zero evidence.
I'll never forget that I 'celebrated' my 22nd birthday in Clovis, NM. The evening itself was totally forgettable, which is why I'll never forget that I was in Clovis, NM.
I don't think I've ever seen a lamer excuse for incorporation than Clovis, NM. Except for maybe Friona, TX.
A public school, where manual labor apparently substitutes nicely for subject mastery.
This will date me...but, oh for the simpler times. I lived about two miles from my high school and had a trap line that I checked when walking to school. I carried a .22 rifle, the principal and teachers knew it, I took it to the teachers union (lounge) where they checked it to make sure it wasn't loaded and picked it up there every night to check traps on the way home. No one even thought about this as being abnormal. (sigh) wish it were 1965 again.
In my day we would have had this assignment in a class called Home Economics. Does this subject exist anymore?
Upon first reading of the title, I was thinking this was an article of gastronomic proportions.
When I was a kid we made plaster volcanos. Kinda says something about our culture today, no?
I thought we weren't supposed to post articles from The Onion.
Then you haven't been to Trona, California.
Times have changed. In the midwest area a while back a boy got suspended and arrested for having his bow in his vehicle. He was a memeber of an archery club and had some field pointed arrows in his car so he would not have to go out of his way back home after school to get them for practice.
isn't there a rule against drunk school officials?
This is a real gasser.
Holy frijole!
Home Economics class, perhaps? (Or whatever it's called now)
Was the "concerned citizen" named Barney Fife or Gladys Kravitz?
Then you haven't been to Trona, California
I LIVE in California and I've never even HEARD of Trona, CA?!?!
Oh for simpler times! I graduated in 1977.
Dangerous item. Mix some sharp cheddar and beans and onions for an accelerant, you will have a stomache bomb:)
in one of my spanish classes in high school I earned extra credit for making enough spanish rice for the whole class. additionally, it could have been for a home economics class (now called "consumer sciences" in most places.)
Well put!
It's a lovely spot on the road from Ridgecrest to Death Valley.
Yes, but it's now called "culinary arts" and "family science". BARF.
In cooking class, yes it does. Remember this is middle school, so even the cooking and shop classes are going to be pretty basic. I never took "home ec" as we called it, way back when, but my brother did take "bachelor living". He made a nice throw pillow that AFAIK, is still around, 30 or so years later. In high school, my dad made a nice chair-side stand (with an extra shelf in addition to it's top) that remained in use in our home until at least the 80s, and which is probably still in decent shape, provided that the youngest grandkid, aka Tiger, didn't destroy it, and I don't' think he did. All I ever made was a rather poorly finished but functional gun rack (3 long guns stored vertically), a wall-mounted duck (with 3-D metal wing) decoration and a really sickly pig cutting board. I was so ashamed of the latter, which was supposed to be for my mother or grandmother, that I made two good ones at home, with a skill saw instead of hand saw. Those cutting boards stayed in use for decades. I think Mom may *still* be using the one I made for Grandma. Don't know what happened to the "Razorback", which is what the first one looked like. :)
BTW, I also took small engine mechanics, auto shop, and electronic shop courses in high school. I now have an MSEE with about 90% of the graduate credits required for a PhD, and my brother has a BA in business adminstration. My wife, who also took Home Ec, has a PhD, my daughter (no home ec AFAIK) has a JD while the other daughter, who probably did take home ec, has a master's and goes back for her PhD this fall.
Eat a 30 inch burrito, and you'll be making a run alright.... but I doubt the border will be your destination. :)
It's still around, although they usually call it something else. Culinary Arts, Bachelor Living, stuff like that. I believe this school called if Culinary Arts.
He may have mastered the art of making great burritos. The suject was "culinary arts" and this was a middle school (formerly known as Junior High, well almost)
BTW, my father teaches at a high school where the kids are trained in how to repair aircraft engines. many good MEs and EEs come out of that shop.
A 30 inch burrito, huh?
So this was to be a chemical gas attack apparently...
Bones
Too funny!!
Three cheers if he makes great burritos. But "culinary arts" in middle school? Please.
How do the liberals manage to live in constant fear? Since stress like this often contributes to cancer, you think they'd be dropping like flies..
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