DHS briefly under lockdown, lifted after DPD protocol showed no threat to school

Published 12:06 pm Thursday, October 21, 2021

Danville High School went under lockdown on Thursday morning after what was described as a “vague threat on social media,” according to a post at 10:55 a.m. on the DHS Facebook page.

Interim Superintendent Elmer Thomas said the comment was made on Snapchat and was following the bomb threat to Lincoln County High School that happened Wednesday, which was later discovered to be “a hoax,” according to the Interior Journal.

Thomas said DHS locked down because a vague comment had been made via Snapchat and said something along the lines of, “You all be careful in Lincoln and Danville.”

Email newsletter signup

“My understanding is someone showed that to the administration at the high school or to the school resource officer at the high school, and they just took some safety precautions to go through their protocols,” Thomas said. 

The high school got the Danville Police Department involved to make sure the situation was safe, Thomas said. He said their protocols included driving by the schools to check on them.

“I feel confident that the Danville police are on top of this,” he said. 

At 11:17 a.m. on Thursday, Principal Chad Luhman released a video to DHS’s Facebook page announcing the lockdown had been lifted.

“We went immediately into lockdown because we value the safety of our students and staff, and we take that responsibility very seriously,” he said in the video. “We went through the proper protocols with Danville Police and with (School Resource) Officer (Ben) Ray, and we have realized it was a threat outside the building, and it was not directed toward Danville High School. At this time, we are prepared to resume learning and get back into our daily schedule, followed with lunch and our fourth, fifth and sixth period. Thank you to all those first responders that came to our school to help us make sure that this was not a threat on our students.”