For about three hours, Gainesville High School students stood in the cold and waited while officers and four canines swept campus for explosives.
“Bomb threat,” an anonymous caller said to a school secretary Wednesday, who immediately reported the call to Gainesville Police just after noon.
School officials said the caller sounded like a teenager, police spokesman Officer Ben Tobias wrote in an email.
Teachers, staff and about 1,900 students were evacuated.
Parents stood in a zigzagged line at the Plaza Verde Shopping Center, waiting to pick up their children from Planet Fitness. Huddled in sweaters and coats, they texted students and reminded others to stay in line.
Tony Reddick, 54, was waiting at about 2 p.m. to pick up his daughter, Raven.
“Hopefully it’s a prank,” he said as he twirled a red lollipop between his fingers. “Unfortunately, there are people in this world that do this kind of stuff.”
Reddick said the school did not contact the parents directly. Instead, his daughter contacted him and his wife.
The school was cleared out after 3:30 p.m. Tobias said although officers investigated the threat, they had not identified a suspect. He couldn’t recall the last time the high school faced a bomb threat.
[A version of this story ran on page 3 on 11/20/2014]
