Lincoln County High School received a call today at approximately 1 pm from a person alleging to be a student in the building with a gun and a bomb. SROs on campus and the Stanford Police Department quickly inititated a lock down of the campus (including Lincoln County Middle School) and began following procedures to investigate the alleged threat.
Emergency personnel from multiple agencies responded to the scene and immediately set up an incident command post. After the initial response, the school was deemed safe to evacuate students to alternate locations so that emergency personnel could thoroughly sweep the building to investigate the threat.
“Moving staff and students to an alternate site for safety was an unprecedented move for us, but considering the specific threat, it was the best way to keep everyone safe,” said Jeff Craiger, Director of Transportation and Safety.
Once all students and staff were safely cleared from the building, law enforcement along with K-9 units from UK Police and KSP did a secondary sweep and were able to deem the school and campus safe for re-entry at approximately 3:30 pm.
“We know this was a stressful couple of hours for parents and guardians,” said Superintendent Bruce Smith. “The safety of our students is of the utmost importance and every threat has to be treated as if it is the real thing. I want to thank all of our students, parents/guardians, staff members and law enforcement for their patience and work today and assuring everyone was safe. I especially want to thank Stanford Baptist Church and Grace Fellowship Church for allowing us to bring students to their locations.”
“School counselors will be available for students and staff if they need to speak with anyone at school tomorrow,” said LCHS Principal Michael Godbey. “I appreciate our students and staff for cooperating and following protocols.”
The campus has been cleared and deemed safe for normal activities to resume for school tomorrow. The incident is still under investigation by law enforcement.