damn kids nowadays will do anything to get out of school, but they're gonna have to be prepared to face the consequences like being anally probed and parents homes searched to find gunz.
stupid punks.
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www.sbsun.com
Gun rumors keep many students away from campus
Stacia Glenn, Staff Writer
BEAUMONT - Rumors that guns would be brought to Beaumont High School Thursday ran rampant through the small community, causing more than half of the students to skip school Thursday.
When students arrived on campus in the morning, about 15 cops were waiting to frisk the teenagers and thoroughly search backpacks and lockers for any weapons. No guns were found in the search.
"It really got spun up into something it wasn't," said Lt. Mitch White of the Beaumont Police Department.
A forum on the popular social networking Web site myspace.com instigated the rumor, students said, and frightened a majority of them into avoiding the campus.
About 50 percent of the student body was absent at the beginning of the day. By dismissal time, attendance had dwindled to about 40 percent because many parents came to pick up their children, said Cynthia English, assistant to interim district Superintendent Nick Ferguson.
Police also searched the homes and bedrooms of the seven students involved in the online forum, White said. That search yielded nothing but a handgun in one of the houses, which belonged to the father of one of the children. The man allowed police to confiscate the weapon.
Sierra Enright, a sophomore, figured something was up when she saw several cops on campus and noticed many students were missing. She said teachers and police went the extra mile to make all students feel safe though, and school went on as usual.
"Aside from everyone making crude jokes
about getting shot all day, nothing was really different," she said.
To stymie the rumor and alleviate parental concern, school personnel distributed a memo to all students on campus and used an alert telephone system to contact all of the parents.
"The rumors that were flying have all been thoroughly investigated by school personnel and Beaumont Police Department and have been found to be unsubstantiated. We have taken extra precautions to ensure your student's safety," read the memo, issued by Principal Kathryn Norwood.
The memo also encouraged students to attend school today as usual.
The scare came just two weeks after a report of shots fired in a nearby neighborhood closed down five schools. On Feb. 3, Beaumont police searched a four-block radius near Michigan Avenue and 10th Street but found no evidence of a shooter or a gun in the area.
For safety reasons, Beaumont High School was closed down for about 15 minutes, along with Palm Elementary, Beaumont Adult School, San Andreas Opportunity School and Glenview High School.