FORT WORTH, Texas — Trying to find one another after a terrifying Tuesday morning, tearful parents and shaken students packed the front lawn of Polytechnic High School.
“My heart was beating really fast,” said junior Hilda Villegas. “I didn’t know what to do. I just thought I have to call my mom just in case I don’t make it.”
Villegas immediately texted her mother that her Fort Worth school was on lockdown, police were everywhere and she was scared.
“They just told me to hide under the tables and be quiet,” she said.
What we now know from Fort Worth Independent School District and Fort Worth police is that two Poly High School students had been involved in a robbery at about 10 a.m. Original reports from officials said there were three students involved. As the teenagers fled police, they ran into their school.
District spokesman Clint Bond said one of them had a gun.
“The school immediately went into lockdown, so those kids were quickly detained,” Bond said.
The question now is: how did those students gain access into the locked building?
“I don’t know if someone was coming out and they just ran in or what, but that’s going to be part of our investigation,” Bond said.
Gloria Gonzales knows her son practices these kinds of lockdown drills, but she rushed to the school when she realized it was real.
“I was just like, 'Oh my God,'" she said. "I was like, 'Lord, Jesus this is my worst fears come true.' I told him, 'Keep texting me. Keep texting me.' I told him I loved him and I told him, 'Keep texting me. Let me know you’re OK.'”
No one was injured, and no shots were fired. The two juvenile suspects were both charged with aggravated robbery, police said, and one was charged with a prohibited weapon in a weapon-free zone. As of Tuesday afternoon, they remained in the juvenile detention center.