On Dec. 3 Danbury High School was dismissed at 12:00 p.m. due to multiple threats.

The day began at Abbott Tech High School where they were locked down due to a photo floating around of an alleged student with a gun standing outside of the school. Danbury High School was then placed in a soft lockdown just after 1st period, around 8:34 a.m.; no student was able to leave and no one was able to enter. 

This soft lockdown was in response to “A combination of a whole bunch of stuff,” said principal Dan Donovan.  “One there was a report of shots fired… the Abbott Tech thing which they haven’t figured out yet which has now been solved, which was false it was an airsoft gun, email threat that came through… we don’t have an answer to this yet police was up here bell was about to ring… kids stay in the building” 

About ten minutes later the lockdown was lifted. On the same day, Hamden High School was officially closed on that Friday because of multiple online threats. According to the New Haven Register, Norwalk High School was closed because of a threat of a student with a weapon. The school had a two-hour delay on Monday december 6th for administrators to provide guidance to teachers and staff on how to support students.

At DHS it was around third wave lunch when students were told to evacuate,retrieving multiple reactions from students. Some were happy just to leave school early, some were worried and scared. 

“This creates a tremendous upheaval in our normal flow of everyday life here” said Officer Morlock, school resource officer.  Leaving many students wondering how the investigation went. “How is it going? It’s not done yet. There’s a lot of things in the police department that take time. They’ve done a great job with their investigation but now you need search warrants, now you need things that [take time] you gotta contact… it takes a while and they’re working through that,” Donovan revealed. 

 Many buses were still on the way as some drivers were at preschools awaiting their pickups. It was even said by some students that the way the crowds acted was similar to “Astroworld,”  a festival gone terribly, taking the lives of many. Students when said it was “astroworld part 2” they were finding similarities in the crowds where if someone got stuck in the crowd, they’d find it hard to breathe, their heart would start racing faster and getting stuck in between those attempting to find their buses on the list.  

As students were getting loaded onto buses and getting ready to leave and go home, buses that had all their kids left until a radio call told buses to return to the high school, the reason still not known. Students who rode the bus assumed it was because many students weren’t able to find their buses and were gonna go on the unfilled buses. Students were stuck in the bus for 30 mins waiting to go home. This was the end of the school day. As posts went around students knew the police were running an investigation and that they were evacuated because of that reason but posts shown on snapchat shows an email sent to who can be assumed a “girlfriend” of a bomb that was supposed to be set off at 12:30 p.m. “[we didn’t dismiss] because we thought the building was gonna explode at that point enough kids had gotten like the email that went out, it was on social media at that time no one is concentrating on school anymore no matter how many times I get on and say, listen this means nothing… it’s just on kids minds so at that point you say ok let’s just go home we’re not gonna do anything productive. It’s 12 o’clock, kids are gonna be thinking of other things so let’s go home and relax everybody a little bit…” Mr. Donovan stated. 

The weekend passes and families get a robo-call on Monday that threats were still to be given to DHS Sunday night through Monday morning, “We’ve had copy-cats since… We are trained as officers in these active shooter drills..it would still be the worst day in Danbury because how could it go smoothly? We are here to react” said Officer Morlock. Fortunately they were dismissed as uncredible. 

DHS wasn’t the only school receiving threats and warnings On the same day, of the threat at DHS Hamden High School was already officially closed because of multiple online threats. According to the New Haven Register, Norwalk High School was closed because of a threat of a student with a weapon. The school had a two-hour delay on Monday dec. 6 for administrators to provide guidance to teachers and staff on how to support students.

High schools all over Connecticut and 1 middle school received threats. Hamden schools were closed until Wednesday. On Wednesday when Hamden opened, yet they were opened with metal detectors and screenings. Leaving a question with all threats given to DHS will DHS get metal detectors? “While nothing is off the table, I am not for metal detectors and will not request metal detectors. I don’t believe our hatters need it, while we are not perfect I do not believe the student population here at Danbury High School warrants this. I have a belief that Danbury High School is not a prison” said Mr. Donovan. 

On Friday Dec. 10, the Danbury Police Department identified and charged the person responsible with a felony for threatening and breach of peace.