Students safe after ‘suspicious person’ prompts 4th recent Beaufort Co. lockdown
Joseph S. Shanklin Elementary School was placed on modified lockdown Tuesday afternoon when students reported seeing a ‘suspicious person’ next to the campus, outside of a fence.
Students remained on a modified lockdown for 20 minutes while the school contacted law enforcement to “patrol the school campus, the surrounding neighborhood, and to perform security checks,” according to a Beaufort County School District press release.
In a modified lockdown, the school day continues as normal, but class changes are halted and all students are brought inside.
One grade level of students was quickly taken inside from recess, according to the district’s press release, before “the report proved to be unfounded” and the school continued normal dismissal.
This is the school district’s fourth modified lockdown in a three-week span that included two full days off for Thanksgiving.
On Monday, Port Royal Elementary School was on modified lockdown for 19 minutes “due to a report of a loud booming noise in the neighborhood,” according to the district.
On Nov. 22, Beaufort Middle School and Mossy Oaks Elementary were placed on modified lockdown for 10 minutes while police investigated reported gunshots in the surrounding neighborhood.
“Officers determined that the sounds had come from nail guns being used by workers at a nearby construction site,” district spokesman Jim Foster said in a Nov. 22 press release.