Police in Council Bluffs say no criminal charges have been filed after an unidentified 12-year-old boy with an AirSoft rifle caused a brief lockdown Monday afternoon at the Titan Hill Intermediate School in Council Bluffs. Superintendent Mark Schweer told the Daily NonPareil at around 1-p.m., a school employee reported seeing a juvenile, who was off the school district property, with what appeared to be a weapon.
Lt. Dan Flores with the Council Bluffs Police Department said the boy, carrying an AirSoft gun shaped like a rifle, turned and ran back into the woods on the northeast side of the school. Initial law enforcement dispatch reports indicated Council Bluffs officers, Iowa State Patrol troopers and Pottawattamie County Sheriff’s deputies were searching for a white male wearing all black and carrying a rifle near Titan Hill.
Police say the juvenile then took off running near Deer Run Trail, causing Titan Hill to go into lockdown. Nearby Lewis Central high and middle schools were also locked down for precautionary reasons. The Lewis Central lockdown was canceled around 1:25 p.m. when law enforcement found the juvenile in the woods near the school. Titan Hill parents received an automatic voicemail notification and email detailing the situation, ending with an all-clear at around 2 p.m.
Lt.Flores said the three departments were preparing to set up a perimeter when the boy was found. He mentioned also, that the juvenile attended a different Council Bluffs school, lived in the area and was “messing around in the woods.”