Chief Cheney this.
Knowing what happened here.
Your thoughts on this? Sure.
Definitely a tragedy. Luckily,
no one was hurt as far as students, faculty.
Essentially what we had happened is our
agency was notified of a possible criminal
act by a parent of one of the junior
high students here at Ridgeview Junior High.
At that point we dispatch
an officer and a detective.
Down to the school. The male parent
was at the school at that time.
He was in it, seated in an office.
Our detective very briefly went in,
spoke to that male parent.
During that very brief conversation
the detective had with that parent,
the parent produced a handgun and fired one
shot into himself and committed suicide.
No other students were hurt.
No faculty was hurt.
The detective was not hurt.
At this time,
we are in the process of evacuating students.
Students from the junior high will
be going to Central High School.
Into the gymnasium Fieldhouse
area of Central High School,
parents can pick up junior high
students from the high school.
We ask that parents arrive at
the high school on the lockville
side of the high school.
And they will be directed from
there where to pick up their
student and their children.
I know this is part of the
investigation why this all happened,
but this is a male. Parent of a student
here. That's correct. Not a staff.
Male, male, parent of a student
chief. I talked to a couple of parents who.
Maybe from the district side
of things would have liked to
have seen more communication,
but as far as police presence was here,
they have nothing but great things to say.
Got here very quick you know.
I know that they're at Hill Rd.
in Columbus was was was blocked
off big police presence here today.
It's hard to have a silver lining in
a day like today, but your department
handled this as best as we could
so far. Everything points to that.
We, like I said, we did have officers
and detectives already on scene at the
junior high when this incident happened.
And then of course, you know,
several other agencies assisted us in this.
The Ohio State Highway Patrol,
Fairfield County Sheriff's Office and
the rest of our officers were all here
in a in a very quick manner. So yes.
That school was shut down almost immediately
and from everything I've seen so far,
it was handled as about as best as we could.
Now, logistically,
the reason why the evacuation sometimes,
you know, takes a little more time
than what we would like is they
have to recall bus drivers who
had already been home, you know,
after their their morning school routes.
So what we were waiting on is,
is those bus drivers to be recalled
from home to get in to help?
Evacuate the students.
Just a couple more quick ones,
if I may. This happened when?
Around what time? So students were here,
students were here in the building, yes.
Any idea on this man?
May that come out later today?
Possibly we are awaiting the
the coroners arrival still here,
but very possibly we could release
more information later in the day.
My last question to you in that
brief conversation with this man.
Do we know anything distraught,
anything about that conversation?
No, nothing in depth yet.
I have not spoke to the
actual detective myself yet
who was involved in that.
He's being debriefed and
things of that nature,
but I do not have those details yet.
At this time,
can you explain again why you
guys were called to the school?
Was this man threatening anyone?
I have no reason
or or believe that he was
threatening anybody at that time.
We were notified that he,
this person may have committed
some criminal behavior,
not necessarily at the school, but no,
at that time there was no indication
that this person was acting erratic
or violent or anything at
that point. Until did not.
Looking into that, had he done anything?
Are we looking into that?
Had he done something before?
That will all be part of the investigation.
As to you know, like I said, we, we were,
we were just advised of this this morning.
So that's what the detective was was doing,
was trying to you know,
start an investigation to see
exactly what this criminal behavior
was that we were notified of.
So it all happened,
I mean at the very,
very beginning of the
information that we got.