Lakeview Elementary precautionarily locked down Thursday morning

MOSES LAKE — Lakeview Terrace Elementary School was in a precautionary lock down for 20 minutes Thursday morning after a school employee reported hearing gunfire in the neighborhood, according to Moses Lake Police Department spokesperson Capt. Mike Williams. However, no threat was found.

“We got a report of one of the school employees heard what they believed to be shots fired in the area of the school,” Williams said. “The MLPD responded, and we were unable to find anything that was out of place.”

In a message to parents of Lakeview students, principal Kristi Bateman said that students were at recess at about 10:45 a.m. at the school on South Clover Drive “when events in the neighborhood caused concern for our supervisory staff.”

School officials followed the district’s “secure the building” protocol by ushering students back into the classroom and locking it down, Bateman explained.

“We lifted the ‘secure the building’ protocol after about 20 minutes at the direction of the MLPD,” the principal wrote.

“I would like to reassure parents that there was no threat to our school, and we entered the Secure the Building protocol as a precaution.” Bateman added.

Williams said one neighborhood witness told police the sound might have been fireworks, though the MLPD was not — as of mid-Thursday — able to discern the cause of the noise.

Charles H. Featherstone can be reached at cfeatherstone@columbiabasinherald.com.