Dalton High School Catamounts published this video on the same day law enforcement said extra police officers will be patrolling Dalton High School after a threatening note was found in a classroom on Wednesday afternoon.
The note, which was found on the floor of one of the classrooms close to the end of the school day, mentioned a threat against the school on Thursday.
UPDATE : Dalton High School will be closed on Thursday, according to a school spokeswoman. All other Dalton schools will operate on a normal schedule.
ORIGINAL STORY : Dalton police officers have taken into custody a teacher who allegedly barricaded himself in a classroom and fired a handgun in a classroom at Dalton High School.
Jesse Randal Davidson has been charged with aggravated assault, carrying a weapon on school grounds, terroristic threats, reckless conduct, possession of a firearm during the commission of a crime and disrupting a public school.
Police say Davidson brought the gun he used, a snub-nosed .38 revolver, onto campus in his computer case when he arrived this morning. He has not disclosed his motives to investigators.
Davidson, a social studies teacher who has been at the school since 2004, was alone in his room during his planning period, according to police. Around 11:30 a.m. a student tried to get inside and found the door was locked. A principal then tried to open it with a key, which is when Davidson fired through a window.
Document: Jesse Randal Davidson 2016 incident report
Document: Jesse Randal Davidson 2017 incident report
Police were called to the school as kids were evacuated to the gym and some locker rooms. Officers negotiated with him for 30 to 45 minutes before he turned himself in.
Police say no children were injured in the incident which brought local, state and federal emergency response agencies to the scene.
"When you hear this kind of call go out, if you've got a badge, you run to it," said Bruce Frazier, spokesman for the Dalton Police Department. "Our people responded and coordinated in a very professional way."
An employee at the Northwest Georgia Trade and Convention Center at 2211 Dug Gap Battle Road said school officials notified them about the situation and told them they would be bringing kids to the center to be picked up by parents.
The employee said school officials didn't tell her how many students to expect, but did say shots had been fired and the school was on lockdown.
The Dalton Police Department worked to keep the community updated, directing parents away from the high school to the convention center.
"PARENTS DO NOT COME TO DALTON HIGH," tweeted the official Dalton Police Department Twitter account. "Students will be taken to the [NW] GA Trade Center. Parents should go there."
"Repeat: no children hurt, no children in danger."
Summer Thomas, a resident of Maryville Tenn. said she has a niece enrolled in a Kindergarten near the school and she first heard about the situation when her sister, the girl's mother, called.
"My sister called us in a frantic, just tizzy because of the fact that she got a call from the school saying the school was on lockdown and there was a school shooter active in the building," she said.
Thomas said she last heard from her sister 30 minutes ago when she said she was going to the school to find her daughter. Thomas said she's glad no children were injured, but the scare has been traumatizing.
"My heart is still racing and I'm just sitting here shaking, thinking about it. It's just absolute madness," she said.
"I can't imagine being people who actually had to experience their children or family dying in these incidents. It's absolute madness and I really hope something changes soon because we can't keep going through this."
Davidson was the announcer for the Dalton Catamounts football games and six years ago wrote a book about the school's football program, "Catamounts! The Glorious History of Dalton Football."
A 2012 post on the Dalton Public Schools website states that Davidson at the time had been voice of the Catamounts for 18 years and a teacher at the school since 2004. It says he grew up in Atlanta.
In 2012, Davidson told the Dalton Daily Citizen why he wrote the book: "The book is the story of one of the central facets of this community, one of the hubs, one of the backbones. While everything is changing, it is the story of the kids who played a game that captured a community."
The Dalton incident is receiving national attention from news outlets, mainly because it happened as a debate about whether teachers should be armed is underway. Pundits also are weighing in.
Rush Limbaugh, the conservative radio talk show host, today suggested that the Dalton High incident might have been faked by those opposed to arming teachers. A post on his website states:
"Oh, of course this will be the argument we use for not arming teachers, but what if the whole thing's a setup to create that very — what if the teacher is a radical leftist and does this to give the [media] a news story that they can then point to. 'See, we can't arm teachers.' ... We're dealing with exactly these kind of people who engage in fake everything that they try to make look real. Nope. I'm not claiming that's what this was. But I will say that if it turned out to be that, I wouldn't be surprised."
Members of law enforcement have investigated several threats to schools in the Chattanooga region in the weeks since the mass shooting at Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fl that claimed the lives of 17 students.
The Times Free Press previously reported that three students were taken into custody last week after making what were perceived as threats to student safety at area high schools.
In one incident, A Ringgold, Ga., high school student is accused of making a new Snapchat account, sending herself a threatening message and passing it along to other students, making it look like she was the target of a dangerous plot.
The Catoosa County Sheriff's Office charged 17-year-old Alexandria Justine Greene, of Cemetery Road in Ringgold, with falsely reporting a crime. According to an incident report, other students heard about the threatening message and alerted the police.
Separately, a Chattanooga girl was charged with filing a false report after a meme parents perceived as a threat was circulated on social media Monday afternoon.
The Hamilton County Sheriff's Office, Chattanooga Police and East Ridge Police were made aware of the meme and began investigating, according to a news release. The message contained what many students and parents thought might be a threat or warning pertaining to three schools in Hamilton County.
Authorities managed to track it to a juvenile who was identified as the creator of the meme. It was determined there was no real threat, but charges will be filed in juvenile court against the girl because her actions caused significant community alarm.
Those arrests came days after three Bradley County students were arrested for allegedly threatening to shoot up Bradley Central High School and another student was jailed after a social media threat against Meigs County High School. A spokesman for Rutherford County Schools also said false rumors had been spread to parents and students, but no credible threats were made.
Mr.Davidson was my favorite teacher. This is so heart breaking. It can be anyone #DALTON — alyssa???? (@alyssaflynn10) February 28, 2018
He will remain the best teacher i’ve ever had. He was so loving and caring filled with laughters and jokes. It hurts knowing it was him who shot the gun. I LOVE and will MISS you Mr. Davidson. Trust me i will visit you. #daltonhighschool @11AliveNews — tania ramirez (@taniaramirez53) February 28, 2018
@nra my favorite teacher at Dalton high school just blockaded his door and proceeded to shoot. We had to run out The back of the school in the rain. Students were being trampled and screaming. I dare you to tell me arming teachers will make us safe. — Chondi???? (@_omg_chondi_) February 28, 2018
I’m a student at dalton high school and I’m traumatized. Stop using my trauma for your conspiracies. We need to end gun violence now. — andrea???? (@iceinmylean) February 28, 2018
(DALTON, Ga.) — A social studies teacher barricaded himself inside a classroom at a Georgia high school on Wednesday and fired a handgun, sending students running outside or hunkering down in darkened gym locker rooms, authorities said.
No Dalton High School students were in the classroom when the teacher fired the weapon, and despite the chaotic lockdown and evacuation, the only injury was a student who hurt her ankle running away.
It wasn’t immediately clear why the teacher, 53-year-old Jesse Randal Davidson, had the gun. Under questioning by detectives, he refused to discuss what led to the shooting.
The gunfire erupted with a nation on edge two weeks after a Florida school shooting left 17 students and faculty dead and ignited a new debate over gun control in America. Within minutes of the Dalton shooting, students there took to social media, calling for restricting gun rights. In the afternoon, President Donald Trump, who has advocated for arming teachers, convened a bipartisan group of lawmakers at the White House to address gun violence.
The teacher was taken into custody without incident after a 30- to 45-minute standoff with officers, police spokesman Bruce Frazier said. A teacher since 2004, Davidson also serves as the play-by-play announcer for the high school’s football team.
Police noted that Davidson didn’t appear to want to hurt the students or faculty. He fired the gun at an exterior window when the principal tried to enter the classroom.
“I don’t know whether he was just firing the gun off to let people know to back off or what,” Frazier said.
The shooting happened about 11:30 a.m. during Davidson’s planning period. At first, students tried to get into the classroom, but they couldn’t. The students told the principal, who tried to enter.
“I didn’t get the door open very far, but he slammed the door and hollered ‘Go away, don’t come in here.’ He had some nonsensical noises that were made as well,” Principal Steve Bartoo said.
Bartoo returned a short time later and put his key in the door “and again he slammed the door before I could open it and he said, ‘Don’t come in here, I have a gun.'”
That’s when Davidson fired and the school was placed on lockdown, authorities said.
Davidson faces six charges, including aggravated assault involving a gun and terroristic threats and acts, jail records showed. Other charges include carrying a weapon in a school safety zone and reckless conduct. It’s not clear if he has an attorney.
Chondi Chastain told The Associated Press she was supposed to have Davidson’s class at 2:30 p.m.
“My favorite teacher at Dalton high school just blockaded his door and proceeded to shoot. We had to run out the back of the school in the rain. Students were being trampled and screaming. I dare you to tell me arming teachers will make us safe,” she tweeted in a post that was retweeted 15,000 times within hours.
She said Davidson himself had commented that arming teachers was a bad idea.
“I feel like there just shouldn’t be guns at school at all,” she said. “It’s our basic student right to feel safe at school and if (teachers were armed), I wouldn’t feel safe.”
Student Emma Jacobs texted her mother while she hid inside a darkened classroom, said her mother, Annmarie Jacobs. Emma, a junior, said in texts that her teacher had turned the lights off and told the students to sit in a corner.
Then, in an act that brought home the danger of the situation, Emma texted her mother, “omg she’s putting desk in front of the door.”
Nathangel Lopez hunkered down with students and teachers in a gym locker room. While there, he tweeted a photo of teens sitting on benches and called for more gun control.
“This shouldn’t happen to us,” he wrote. “I hope a lawmaker somewhere will do something.”
When he found out that a teacher was involved, he shifted his stance on arming educators.
“At first, I was thinking that that might have been a good idea. I am now totally against it,” he said.
Several students said on social media they were outraged that some on Twitter questioned whether the incident was staged.
Davidson was described as laid back and smart. In 2012, he was recognized as the school’s top teacher, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported . He moved to Dalton in 1995 and became sports and news director at WBLJ-AM radio.
“It was always about the students. He really wanted the students to understand the concept,” said 18-year-old senior Rowdy Zeisig.
The principal said Davidson was an “excellent teacher” who was well thought of, and “as far as I know he was fit to be at work.”
Twice in recent years, Dalton police say they encountered the teacher exhibiting odd behavior and wrote in one report that he “may be delusional.”
Davidson had walked into the police department and told a rambling story about thinking a murder had occurred, police wrote in a 2016 report. But police said they investigated and were not able to verify that any of the information was true. Police said that after the interview, Davidson was taken to a hospital “based on him thinking about hurting himself.”
Police said in another report last year that officers found Davidson during a school day sitting on the curb of a street, conscious but unresponsive and being held up by two school staff members. He was again taken to a hospital.
Both police reports were posted late Wednesday by the Chattanooga Times Free Press.
A week ago, police found a “threatening” note on the floor of a classroom at Dalton High, but it wasn’t related to the shooting Wednesday.
Threats have been made at schools across the country in the wake of the Feb. 14 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.
Dalton High has about 2,000 students. The school is about 90 miles (145 kilometers) north of Atlanta.
(CNN) A north Georgia high school teacher was arrested on Wednesday after he barricaded himself in a classroom and fired a shot from his handgun out of a window, police said.
No one was injured in the incident at Dalton High School, except for a female student who injured an ankle running through the school, police spokesman Bruce Frazier said.
The shooting about 85 miles north of Atlanta heightened the already tense debate around guns in schools in the wake of the deadly mass shooting in Parkland, Florida , two weeks ago.
President Donald Trump and the National Rifle Association, among others, have proposed that teachers should be allowed to bring firearms into schools to defend against possible attacks. But critics have said arming teachers would create a host of other dangerous side effects, and pointed to the Dalton shooting as Exhibit A in that argument.
School resource officer helped end standoff
The incident began about 11:30 a.m. when Randal Davidson, a 53-year-old social studies teacher, refused to let students into his classroom while he was in his planning period, Frazier said. When the principal put a key in the door in an attempt to enter, Davidson fired a shot from a handgun through an exterior window of the classroom, Frazier said.
The school went into lockdown, and police quickly arrived and evacuated the immediate area around his classroom. After about 30 to 45 minutes, Davidson agreed to surrender and was taken into custody without further incident, Frazier said.
Frazier said there was no evidence Davidson was trying to fire at anyone.
"It certainly seemed like he didn't have any intention to harm anybody else," Frazier said.
Police later tweeted that Davidson would face charges of aggravated assault, carrying a weapon on school grounds, terroristic threats, reckless conduct, possession of gun during commission of a crime, and disrupting a public school.
Dalton police said the school resource officer, who has a close relationship with school staff, was at the junior high school when the incident began and then came to Davidson's classroom. The officer was able to speak to the teacher and persuade him to leave his room without harming anyone.
"We're very, very proud of this officer and everything that he did to render this horrible situation safe as quick as what he did," Dalton police Assistant Chief Cliff Cason said.
Randal Davidson, 53, was arrested for firing a gun in Dalton High School in Georgia on Wednesday, police said.
Cason praised the school's lockdown drill as "flawless" and said it made it easier for police to quickly reach the teacher.
"When we got there, they directed us where we needed to go and it made things so much easier for us because it wasn't mass chaos, as you see at times," Cason said.
In a lockdown drill, teachers are instructed to gather students into classrooms, lock the room, turn off the lights and move away from windows, Principal Steve Bartoo said.
Davidson has been a teacher at Dalton since 2004 and was the play-by-play radio announcer for the high school's football team, Frazier said. Police did not release any explanation for what happened.
Bartoo said Davidson was an "excellent teacher" who was "well thought of in our building."
Classes will resume Friday. Students can go by the school Thursday to claim their belongings.
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A teacher is in custody following reports of a shooting at a high school in the US, police said.
Horrifying footage shows students running through the halls of Dalton High School in Georgia following the incident on Wednesday afternoon.
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It was sent on Snapchat with the caption: ‘Y’all it’s a threat and I’m finna cry! Everybody running and crying. He in the building bruh.’
The school in the city of Dalton is on lockdown and was evacuated following reports of shots fired, but no students were seriously hurt.
In a tweet, Dalton Police said: ‘No children hurt, no children in danger.’
NEW: We’ve just arrived to the HS. Waiting to be taken to the staging area. Buses with kids are all leaving the high school in Dalton now. pic.twitter.com/iteZHw2bGe — Stephanie Santostasi (@Stephanie_NC9) February 28, 2018
Streets around the school are packed as parents and others are converging on the school at dalton high @thedailycitizen pic.twitter.com/azbsMI5jKn — Chris Whitfield (@cwhitfi7) February 28, 2018
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The incident happened at Dalton High School in Georgia (Picture: AP)
Wesley Caceres, a student at the school who tweeted the video, said on Twitter that he and his classmates are ‘traumatised, adding: ‘It’s time to make changes.’
Police have identified the teacher who opened fire as Jesse Randall Davidson.
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The 53-year-old history and social studies teacher barricaded himself inside a classroom during the incident, police have served.
He is also the commentator of the high school’s football team.
Police earlier warned parents not to come to the high school, before tweeting that ‘the teacher is in custody’.
The school was evacuated with students filmed running through corridors (Picture: Google)
A student is believed to have suffered an ankle injury running though the school during the evacuation.
Parents were told to meet their children at the Dalton Convention Center, where they have been taken, and not the high school.
According to the Dalton Daily Citizen, there was an increased police presence at the school last week following the discovery of a threatening note thought to have been written by students.
The incident comes just two weeks after 17 people were killed in a Valentine’s Day massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida.
The deadly shooting has prompted mass calls for gun control in the US, with a group of students who survived the shooting leading the charge.
Opponents of gun control have argued that teachers should be armed with firearms.
