Parents waited anxiously for their children to be let out of Eastview Middle School during a lockdown on Tuesday. (rdnewsNOW/Troy Gillard)

By Troy Gillard

no students injured

Weapon reported in incident at Eastview Middle School: RCMP

Jun 11, 2019 | 8:10 PM

There was a heavy police presence Tuesday afternoon in response to an incident that led to a lockdown at Eastview Middle School.

The lockdown went into effect just after 3 p.m. and ended more than two hours later after all of the approximately 600 students had been cleared from the building.

“There’s not much I can tell you right now. It’s still under investigation,” said an on-site RCMP spokesperson. “A situation arose here at Eastview where a lockdown was required and police responded.

“There was a report of a weapon, that’s all I can say right now,” the spokesperson added.

None of the students at the school were injured.

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“We were made aware of an incident we thought might harm the safety of our students,” said Red Deer Public Schools Superintendent Stu Henry, “so we went into lockdown (and) called the police. The police were fantastic with their response.”

An Eastview Middle School student said the incident was a follow-up to a fight between students from Eastview and another school that took place on Monday.

“There was a big fight yesterday. Some of the guys that came to the school (Eastview) got beat up quite badly,” the student shared. “So the kids from the other school came to this school to come, like, jump them and beat them up.”

The student, who asked that her name not be shared, said she was scared while she sat in lockdown with her classmates for about 90 minutes.

Rachelle Bonin, whose son attends Eastview Middle School, said she also heard the lockdown stemmed from a follow-up fight involving students.

“My son’s best friend just came out and he said a bunch of kids from another school tried to jump students,” said Bonin.

A nearby resident living in Mountview reported seeing police make an arrest behind his home. RCMP would not confirm whether the arrest was connected to the incident at the school.

Henry says they did their best to keep parents informed via texts and emails while the situation was unfolding.

“We worked really hard to put out a message every 10 minutes, every 15 minutes to our parents letting them know what the situation was,” he noted, “and quite early we were able to say that it was safe in the school and that we were just making sure that we could account for all the students.”

RCMP plan to share more details in a media release on Wednesday.