The Sedona Police Department placed the Sedona Red Rock High School on lockdown for almost an hour on Thursday, Aug. 29, due to a potential suspect with a gun. At the Sedona-Oak Creek School District board meeting Sept. 10, Governing Board members were briefed on what was learned. For the administration, it was a true test of their emergency preparedness.

“The critical thing for us, we were trying the whole time to get the communication out. We can’t text out this kind of information, and we know the students are, and that caused confusion because our [phone] lines were totally overwhelmed with calls,” Superintendent Dennis Dearden said. “Then people started arriving on campus.” 

The timing was also critical. At 11:48 a.m. many students were on lunch break. Instead of students in classrooms where they could be secured in place, students were everywhere on campus.

“This happened during lunch period, one of the worst scenarios, so we were gathering students up, trying to get them to safe areas so it wasn’t like everybody is in their classroom and just locking the door,” Dearden said. “We had teachers step up. We escorted kids to a conference room where they shut the windows and locked the doors. They had about 60 kids in there with one teacher … would have been nice to have more but you can’t plan for that.”

During the lockdown, Sedona Police received an erroneous call reporting an active shooter in the school. Police later determined the caller provided inaccurate information but the Sedona Police Department responded according to protocol. 

“If there would have been a live shooter we would have wanted that [response], so it was very appropriate,” Dearden said. 

The lockdown was a sudden and shocking situation for students.

“Police were on campus, guns drawn, going from classroom to classroom. Our kids handled it well. They were frightened, but I would be frightened,” Dearden said.

Fifty-four minutes after the lockdown began, Sedona police located the suspect, Thomas William Zielinski, a former student, on Sierra Road and the lockdown was cancelled. He was trespassed from the campus and cited. Once the lockdown was terminated, police dispatch cancelled the agency assist calls. But terrified parents, receiving texts from their children that the campus was locked down, flooded the phone lines of the high school and the police department. The recommended policy moving forward is to limit texts and calls with official communication coming from the administration.

“It’s almost impossible when everybody has a phone, but what we try to do is limit that because what if there is an actual shooter and a phone rings?” Dearden asked. “That can cause them to come to your classroom, so the best thing is you want to be prepared, you want to be barricaded in, you want to be quiet and so forth.”

On Thursday, Aug. 30. Zielinski was charged with a felony weapon offense for possessing a deadly weapon in a school zone, the most serious charge, and four additional charges including trespassing on school grounds after being ordered not to return. 

“It’s important to note that the investigation shows that this incident was a result of a relationship dispute, not someone planning a mass attack,” Sedona Police Chief Charles Husted said.
Ironically, SRRHS already had a lockdown drill scheduled for Monday, Sept. 9, just 10 days after the actual incident. After parents were notified, the drill was held, on schedule, with Sedona Police Department participation, at 9:05 Monday morning, 

“It was real close to the experience they went through so it was fresh in their minds and they took it very seriously,” Dearden said. “We were able to debrief right after. They cleared every building and actually tried to get into some classrooms to see how people would react because, statistically with most shooters, it only lasts five minutes.”

So with a real, raw experience and another drill, is this the end of school shooter lockdown drills?

“No, we’ll do it several times. The next one will be unannounced. We will do a couple more because you want to make sure it’s fresh in people’s minds. The next time we may do it at lunch time … it will be a drill and we won’t announce it,” Dearden said. “We have a fire drill Thursday [Sept. 12] for example, so we’ve got to continue those efforts because the number one priority is to keep kids safe and learning.”

The staff, teachers and administration at SRRHS learned valuable lessons on Aug. 29.

“We had a debriefing with the police and I had a personal conversation with police chief Husted. The good thing is, everybody was safe. It was a learning experience for all of us how you communicate in those situations. We learned a lot of people didn’t get contacted,” Dearden said. “I think the kids learned some¬thing and I know we did. We learned from law enforcement so we can get stronger next time and parents can appreciate that.”

Don Eicher can be reached at 282-7795 ext 126 or email deicher@larsonnewspapers.com