Breaking: Albuquerque middle school in lockdown...

[Fridays Child]

...female student saw a man with a knife (?!). Two nearby elementary schools also locked down. Will add link when available.

[Ian David]

1. Bush says it's because we need prayer in schools. n/t

[Fridays Child]

2. He truly is a psycho bastard from hell.

[nosillies]

3. Sadly, we have had a school lockdown in our area (central FL)

pretty much every day for at least a week now. Students claim to have seen other students with guns, or unrelated crimes occurred near a school, or anonymous callers reported upcoming violence at a school, etc.

Honestly, it's getting a bit "boy who cried wolf" now, and it's not really breaking news in this area anymore. In my school days, bomb threats were always the easiest way to postpone a difficult exam or liven up a boring week. Thankfully, a lot of the recent lockdowns have turned out to be much ado about nothing -- it's just that in today's environment, everybody is going to take things really seriously for a while.

Hopefully, the Albuquerque situation will soon be diffused with no one getting hurt.

[fidgeting wildly]

4. I wonder if it's pranksters or just really scared kids.

I can see how kids would be jumpy, and I'm sure many have been told by parents and teachers to report anything suspicious. But I can also imagine this happening as a prank, to get out of class. I wonder which is happening more frequently.

[Fridays Child]

5. The truth is usually somewhere in between.

Some of these incidents are undoubtedly pranks but kids are probably jumpy, too.

[silverweb]

6. I'll go with "really scared kids."

My daughter says that if she were still in K-12, she'd be begging to stay home. She remembers Columbine and the two subsequent San Diego-area shootings all too well.

[slackmaster]

7. It seems so weird to me - I carried a knife every day in high school

Folding utility knife in a sheath hanging on my belt, just like the one I wear at work now.

[bluedogyellowdog]

8. Sadly,

I remember fondly the days when most of us carried pocket knives to school and it was no big deal. Somehow this paranoid atmosphere running rampant in our society, where schools are more like prisons with metal detectors and lockdowns and where the worst intentions are always assumed, has to stop. That goes for society as a whole, not just schools.

[hsher]

9. Albuquerquean here

I feel really stupid. I was at work all day and heard NOTHIN' about this. Don't worry. If the kid is really an Albuquerquean, even if he did bring a knife to school, he won't get around to using it until tomorrow. I'm surprised the police didn't wait to show up tomorrow and the school wasn't locked down tomorrow.

OK, Albuquerque joke there.